This episode features Bud Strang, the CEO of Six-Ten, LLC. Six/Ten  develops, leases and manages a diverse portfolio of commercial real estate properties and operating companies across Central Florida, but their true passion is for downtown Winter Haven, where they and others are working to drive smart growth by repurposing wonderful old building for lease and producing smart in-fill projects that create new urban spaces.

In this episode, John and Bud discuss how Bud and his team have developed a very interesting funding model which they believe could be a future model for other communities. Tune in, and learn how a small group of investors scaled into a larger group of local investors for the purpose of transforming their downtown.

• It absolutely did not start and there was really no plan, like I said. They were a series of opportunistic purchases. And you mentioned, mixed use. For the longest time, we really couldn’t even articulate what it is we were doing. – Bud Strang
• we call it irreplaceable real estate. Let’s say, “Well, why do you say it’s irreplaceable?” Well, it’s built in a way we don’t build anymore by people who don’t have those kinds of skills anymore, with materials that we can’t get anymore. And really unique, tight density often and unique artful approaches. And that’s kind of the definition of something that’s irreplaceable. – John Marsh
•  think there ends up being sort of a moat around these type of investments because the barriers to entry become so high, that it just wouldn’t make sense to go and try and duplicate it. – Bud Strang
• We went in and had a market study done by the folks over at Zimmerman and Volk. We were really pleased with their findings. . – Bud Strang
• Well, the value creation curve for this type of development, new urban, in field mixed use type development. I think a lot of the value creation takes place in the outer years- Bud Strang
•  And one thing about investing in your town is, not only do you get the return, you get to experience it, you’re there with it. I mean, you’re living in the investment. – John Marsh
• They (our investors) want their share price to appreciate. And then, they’d like to be able to get in and out, if they could. Sometimes life shows up and people need liquidity. If you think about those three investment considerations, they all work against each other.- Bud Strang
• So the tension is, do I pay a distribution? Do I have that money aside and reinvest to grow the share value? Or do I take that money and allow you to have some sort of redemption opportunity? . And it’s one of the reasons, so few investments of the size we’re talking about are able to dance in this world for a long time. -John Marsh
• Yes, the common denominator, everyone was basically local, from our community and they would like to get a nice return on their investment. But there’s also that intangible return, that also will come along with this, we think. If we’re successful with our project then the whole city will benefit..- Bud Strang

• Bud Strang
• Six/Ten LLC
• Winter Haven, FL
• John Anderson from Incremental Development
• Zimmerman and Volk
• Visionary and Integrator model from the book, Rocket Fuel