The B Team Podcast
Talking all things Business, Bentonville, and Bourbon. Hosted by Josh Saffran, Matt Marrs, and Rob Nelson. New episodes every Thursday!
The B Team Podcast
Ep. 55 - The Future of Northwest Arkansas: Real Estate, Growth, and Community
Northwest Arkansas is in the midst of a historic transformation, and few people have witnessed this evolution as intimately as Steve Lane. From his early days as a Walmart engineer in 1992 to his current role as Managing Director at Colliers, Steve has had a front-row seat to the region's explosive growth—and played a significant role in shaping it.
When Steve arrived in Northwest Arkansas, the combined population of Benton and Washington counties barely reached 180,000. Today, that number approaches 600,000 and continues to climb with approximately 1,500 new residents arriving monthly. What's driving this remarkable growth? As Steve reveals, Northwest Arkansas has evolved far beyond its identity as Walmart's hometown.
The crown jewel of recent development is Walmart's new 350-acre home office campus, which Steve describes as "a new city within Northwest Arkansas."
Beyond Walmart, multiple growth engines now power the region. The Walton family's investments in mountain biking trails have created what Steve calls "the mountain bike culture" of Northwest Arkansas—a year-round outdoor recreation scene that rivals destinations like Austin and Nashville. Major healthcare expansions are bringing specialized medical professionals and the estimated 20 supporting jobs each physician creates. Meanwhile, cultural assets like Crystal Bridges Museum have put Northwest Arkansas on the national map.
Perhaps most telling is how the nature of migration to Northwest Arkansas has changed. "We used to laugh that it was like band camp—people would come for two years and then leave," Steve recalls. "Now people are moving in saying, 'I lived in Denver and could live anywhere I wanted.'" This shift from temporary corporate transplants to intentional residents seeking quality of life represents a fundamental evolution in the region's growth story.
What's next for Northwest Arkansas? Steve points to emerging opportunities in Bella Vista, Southern Missouri, and Eastern Oklahoma as the region's influence expands beyond traditional boundaries. With Northwest Arkansas poised to enter the top 100 metropolitan statistical areas in the coming years, the remarkable growth story shows no signs of slowing down.
Ready to discover why Northwest Arkansas has become America's fastest-growing region? Tune in to hear Steve Lane's insider perspective on this extraordinary transformation.
Welcome to the B-Team Podcast. I am your host, josh Saffron, with my co-host, matt Morris and our permanent guest, rob Nelson. We're here every week to talk to you about all things Bentonville, bourbon and business the B-Team Podcast Be here. Welcome to the B-Team Podcast. I'm your host, josh Saffron, with my co-host. Matt Mars and an empty seat again today for our permanent guest. What's his track record in the last couple months? Like less than 50%.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't even yeah, 25 maybe.
Speaker 1:I mean, do we need to really have a vote off the island type thing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, 25 maybe I mean, do we need to really have a vote off the island type thing? I'm going to let you handle that. He's your. I always have someone that shows up on my side.
Speaker 1:Well, I can't give you credit for this fabulous guest today. I'm going to take credit for Mr Steve later. But what's in the seat here is much more valuable than Bobby will ever be, and we'll get into that.
Speaker 2:Well, we were going gonna. You know, normally we try some bourbon, but you should save that one I'm going to see brought this for me. He's got his company on here and I'm great real estate company in northwest arkansas and I'm gonna keep this one so that one will never get opened.
Speaker 1:I can promise you at least it won't be shared with me.
Speaker 3:It's a trophy yeah, it's a trophy. Yeah, what's?
Speaker 1:wrong.
Speaker 3:It's more important than this.
Speaker 1:He claims he's in Vegas on some builder show. Well, maybe.
Speaker 2:We know he's maybe went to the show for five minutes.
Speaker 1:You're a builder too. Last I checked and you're here Priorities, I guess. Steve, we're here every Thursday for all things business, bentonville and bourbon, and I got my guy Steve Lane here and I know Steve a long time and what I love about Steve is so it was. Hey, anybody know what's happening in town, like what's being built or what the new stuff is? Let me call Steve Gosh. I can't talk about it. I can't talk about it. But like all the cool new things happening, like you got your hands in just about everything, everything.
Speaker 3:I hope so. That's all that we do. We're just brokers. We don't make anything. We don't produce any products, just market. Knowledge and time is all we have. That's our business.
Speaker 1:Give me your background. You've been here for a long time. You were at Walmart and then you got morphed into the real estate business.
Speaker 3:I've been here a long time. I moved here in 1992 to work for Walmart. I got actually hired as an engineer. My background's in engineering and my personality wasn't really as an engineer, it was a little more in sales and so I saw these guys across the table doing real estate deals. I'm like, man, that's where I want to be. So I moved over to real estate pretty quickly.
Speaker 1:Oh, you were in real estate at Walmart, I was yeah, and in the early 90s, when it was just amazing A store popping up everywhere.
Speaker 3:I think when I was there seven years, we went from maybe $50 billion in sales to like $150 billion in sales. That was really the growth spurt. We were doing 300, 350 projects a year. I mean it was historic, yeah. So that's like a new store opening a day. It was crazy, yeah. And the big square footage. These were super centers and whatnot. Anyway, long story short, I thought I'd be here for a few years, maybe get some stock options and move back to a city somewhere. And 33 years later, you know, here I am. But it's been a fantastic ride, you know, and married Kim, met her at Walmart, Shout out to Kim, Raised our Kim, the secret of my success we all feel the same way about ourselves.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, I left Walmart, josh, I worked for a developer for a few years and then I started. We decided not to leave. Kim's career was on fire, you know, and so we said we're just going to stay in Northwest Arkansas, which was kind of a big deal back then, because that's what? 2000? Yeah, roughly, and there's nothing like it is here today.
Speaker 3:I'll tell you this when I moved here in 92, there were 180,000 people maybe in both counties, you know. Now today we're pushing 600. So it's crazy. It was a small place back then. Yeah, it was kind of a big decision. And then did you so tell me how, collier, is that your?
Speaker 1:business Did you? Is it tell me the background on Collier's? Is that your business, did you? Is it tell me the background on Collier's?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So so I left the, the, the developer, started doing brokerage for some clients and then met a guy named Ramsey Ball, a Steeler exterior friend. You all may know Ramsey Sure, everybody knows Ramsey. He said you know, there's the opportunity for a lot more than you're doing here, and you know he's kind of the visionary. You know I'm kind of the grinded out guy and he's, he was a visionary and he said so. We formed a company and started doing a commercial real estate.
Speaker 3:Ramsey had come out of Little Rock, which was the Collier's Dixon Flake Partners At that point. They were Dixon Flake Partners. They got the Collier's affiliation. Collier's is an international organization and so it was a national flag. So we had the opportunity to do one of the first national flags here, which is which is. Which is pretty big deal at the time. We were the first at the time and so then then it was off. You know we grew kind of slowly at first and then quicker now. You know so. And how many people do you have on the team? Right now We've got about 20. In Northwest Arkansas Collier's has offices in primary offices Little Rock, we're in Hot Springs, now Conway and then in Rogers. So we've got probably 150 in the company total something like that.
Speaker 1:So the thing everybody wants to know about with the big Walmart campus, right? So you guys were involved and I'm sure there's things you can say and can't share and all that thing, but you've been involved in the retail side. So they've announced a bunch of different locations Gen's Pl places fortunate enough to be one of them but can you guys give a little background on the project, the process like where it started, how you guys started to source what the thinking was and then how you kind of got to the end road with them?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so, and, by the way, is that amazing when you drive through it.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's so. It's stuff that you never even I don't think I realized that it was number one, that big property, and number two that there was going to be the way that it's all thought out and it's just, it's so neat, like driving down eighth street now.
Speaker 3:I mean we think we got a pretty good pulse on what's going on around here. That's like walmart's assembly, 350 acres, like what, what, when you know. So, um, it's significant on so many levels, but I tell people you've got to drive through it and they, they created a new city in Northwest Arkansas. I mean, it's just, it's just amazing. But so, yeah, I think the genesis of this was, once I left Walmart long enough and Kim had left Walmart long enough, I could become their broker to a degree. We don't do anything for them, we get our share, which is great, very fortunate to do that. And so they approached us, probably three to four years ago, and said we've got this plan and we've got these parking decks and we're going to activate these parking decks, which is a really cool concept. So it's not just a big wall, it's liner shops, right, and so then wall, it's liner shops, right and so.
Speaker 3:So then, yeah, a lot of discussion, long process to sort of curate what that means. I mean, obviously, primarily it's for the associates, but it also needs to survive, you know, evenings, weekends, and we think we've created a mix that will do that and create kind of a shopping district there. And I mean, you're in Bentonville, you're in Bentonville so. So yeah, it was. It was a fascinating, unique, you know kind of opportunity. We sought out a lot of advice through Collier's network brokers who do this kind of work. You know this is new, this is and it's really not been done many places you know.
Speaker 1:Again what you can share and what you can't share. So, like I'm sure there was this blueprint, we have 30 spaces, 35 spaces. We want a brewery. Do we want a pizza shop? Do we not want to like? How was the decision-making process on what types of business was going to go on in there? Can you share any of that?
Speaker 3:Well, you know, they've got a big food hall really cool Eighth and plate very cool, eighth and plate. They've got a of compete with those. So you know, there's certain things that we didn't probably want to do outside of that. They just really wanted to do kind of the coolest things and again, primarily for the associate experience, so they don't have to leave to go to lunch, so they don't have to leave to get a haircut. You know various things, you know so. So yeah, that was kind of the the mission, yeah, and it was a long journey. I mean, you guys were, you know various things you know so.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, that was kind of the mission, yeah, and it was a long journey. I mean you guys were, you know, in the middle of this thing for a long period of time. Did you guys engage to, like, did Doug get involved at all? Was John involved, or was it strictly through the real estate team? Or how much involvement do you guys have at the highest level?
Speaker 3:You know, you have a sense that the decisions that are being made above and you hear certain things, but you know, I think, uh, from you know, cindy, down to andrew, chris, I mean that's been our, our contacts primarily andrew and chris, and man, they've it's been a, it's been a heck of a a journey for them oh, it's, it's, it has to be, it's had to be like a huge learning experience for everyone.
Speaker 2:Because, like I say, you know now that I that I went through there once, whenever, whenever I'm coming home, we live over on the west side of town, so I would always take 102 or I'd take 72. And now I'm like I got to go through eight so I can see what.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what the update is today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like to have your own number one, your own exit, yeah, yeah, and I mean, like they've thought, I mean we don't know, or you probably know, but this had to be 15 years ago that this started, 10 or 15.
Speaker 3:I mean because they I wasn't privy to all that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you don't know about that exit and all that, but you don't just do that over my head.
Speaker 3:Well, I worked in the old building that was next to the fitness center. That was a warehouse that the Cube farmed out, so they had a lot of that property center. That was a warehouse that the cube farmed out, you know. So they had a lot of that property. It was distribution centers, whatever. But yeah, it was like the thing. But you know, I think you know they sort of leaned into folks.
Speaker 1:That leaned into them, you know, and you guys did and, uh, you know, like flyway jumped right on it that's what I was waiting to get to shout out I was trying to share the conversation flyway my neighbor, uh, the the brewery is going to be up here on the campus, which again is cool that there's going to be alcohol, like typically you think of Walmart. I was a little surprised about that, yeah, have you had Flyway before.
Speaker 3:I've never got it. These guys do a fantastic job. Matt's a great brewer. You know his story. He was an English teacher and he was making beer in his garage and he got really good at it and so he got some capital behind him and started doing you know, and his concept is he said three things. You know, everybody wants to open a tap room. He said you got to have good concept, good branding, you got to have good beer and you got to have good food. And that's what he's doing.
Speaker 1:Flowey has a full menu too.
Speaker 2:They have a full menu. Oh, that's great, and this is at the home office. This will be at the home office.
Speaker 1:So in the center that I'm in, jen's place is in the middle and on one anchor is Wright's Barbecue. Shout out to Jordan and this is the other anchor. So you want to talk about traffic for our barbershop? I mean, how cool is that?
Speaker 2:These are supposed to fit Collier it's koozy. Oh yeah, they fit.
Speaker 1:You all right there. You good, this is tasty.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's good, this is their IPA.
Speaker 2:You're not a big IPA guy. He's got a great. Actually, I'm kind of coming around. This doesn't really hide it. This is a little malty, it's kind of.
Speaker 3:But yeah, this is good. It's a good, sweet mix.
Speaker 1:So the to mix, so the ones that are on campus. So we talked to jen's place rights barbecue and fly away and then gear heads in that same plaza as well, right, so that's like I don't want to say they would never say it's a male generator or male theme, but they kind of got a little bit of the right it's.
Speaker 3:It's more male centric, I would say you, you do try to do the right tenant mix, and so I think that's, I think that's accurate, yeah, and so when you guys are in such a great spot right across from the hotel, oh my gosh, the Welcome Center, yeah, it's awesome, and then, on the other end of the campus, what they announced there's a sushi restaurant, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's been announced. Well, I know it's been announced. Yokozuna, it's a group out of Oklahoma City, the McNellis group, I believe, mcanelly's group. We had a lot of really good concepts. A lot of Oklahoma groups came over here. We went after a lot of national groups. It's kind of hard for them to figure out and for this to be their first in the state. Like where are we at Arkansas, little Rock? No, bentonville Home office campus. You know cool story, but not everybody. So I want national sushi place here. Like what's a national sushi place? And you pick and go up a phone and call people oh, yeah, oh yeah. Now, in fairness, he's like I know mary, claire and mason, I know, not me, right, we get my team, we operate as a team, yep, and so. But yeah, we, we form a list and we run that list by the client. Here's our target list and then you, then you work it, you know, and so that's the process.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so you did have some no's. Then right, you had some people say not interested. I again don't share who it is but Everybody was intrigued.
Speaker 1:but if they don't have distribution, if they don't have anybody close, if they don't have anywhere to service it, I mean that's the way retail works right and most of what you end up doing, like Chen's place is local, jordan Wright is local, flyway is local. I mean like you didn't go grab places from New York City and San Francisco and LA to come in primarily right. Mostly it's more regional.
Speaker 3:It was a process I mean we went through. You know we were pretty aspirational on a lot of our targets, you know.
Speaker 2:He's like Josh, you were number 10 on the list. I didn't want to bring that up, but it's here.
Speaker 3:But if we have local people, we did go to, let's say, best in class local people. Thank you, that's you, thank you.
Speaker 1:That's a good recovery there.
Speaker 3:That's Flyway, that's Bentonville Bike. We're really, really, really energetic about it. There's a lot of bike shops and these guys leaned in and I think that's like I was going to say that was important to Walmart people who shared their vision for what they want this to be.
Speaker 1:So what we talked about when they came to pitch the gents place to us. We said we just don't want to be another barbershop like we have three miles away. We're creating this business lounge, the first of its kind, that people could do business meetings, and I think that was what helped sell it. I mean, you could put any shop in there to cut hair, but we're trying to create something curated, specific for Walmart and I think that was important to them in the process.
Speaker 3:That's right. No, that's exactly right. Do you see their vision? Do you see what they're trying to do? Yes, it's for the greater community, but it's primarily an amenity for the associates.
Speaker 1:And when is everything expected to be fully built out and on board?
Speaker 3:Yeah, cheat sheet by the end of this calendar year. So they're occupying it now. Yeah, I don't want to break any news. I think they've announced mostly occupied by the end of this year. Okay, you know, that's exciting.
Speaker 2:That's huge.
Speaker 3:That's the goal. That's exciting. You're talking about 15,000 people there and then another, possibly several thousand visitors, you know every week. So it's something else.
Speaker 1:So my office with Plug Play is half a mile away, so I walk there during lunch and one of the guys on my team went and had lunch at 8th Plate today and I guess Doug McMillan was giving a presentation in the Sam Walton Oratorium. He said that 8th Plate was like it was a zoo. It was packed, which is exciting. The energy when you're walking by and when you worked in the home office you like you never saw anybody. Now I'm driving past and I'm like hey, that's my buyer, hey, like, and you're seeing people like out in the world where otherwise you'd have to see them behind closed doors at the home office.
Speaker 3:So it's really cool Very engaging concept and I and that's beyond my scope and over my skis that's the idea right they had. That's the idea right they had. When I was there, you had the hub, you know the old home office they called it the hub and the spoke. And so they would find you know whatever buildings they had and they would just cube, farm it out, put people in there and then it's like we all need to be together, it needs to be collaborative, for just reasons you said Yep.
Speaker 1:So, all right, I know that we don't want to put you on the spot, but you got a whole bunch of other projects going on currently that you could share in the region, right? New restaurants and new businesses, and there are other cool things happening right here in the area.
Speaker 3:You know, one of the coolest things I would say we've been involved in is the new apartments off Northgate and that project and we represented the developer who came in and did that. That developer happened to own several Roots Chrisises and what he's doing that company and it's a really thoughtful thing. They moved the Roost Chrises, relocate them to sort of anchor activate, as you say. That's the buzzword the apartments, and then we've got some retail we're putting in there as well, we're leasing for them and so I think that whole area we've got a new building there we just did. That's exciting. So you know, where this is.
Speaker 1:You know where Ashley is, ashley Lounge and the—.
Speaker 3:Woodhouse.
Speaker 1:Woodhouse. Yeah, yeah so right over there all that construction's going on, Because that's the new Ruth's Chris is going to be two-story.
Speaker 3:Ruth's Chris is two stories. It's 20,000 feet, 20,000 square feet, I think it 150. I may be wrong, but yeah, we're planning our Christmas party there right now. You guys will be invited 20,000?
Speaker 2:20,000 square feet, and then you have an office there also.
Speaker 3:So then our office is the new three-story brick building right across from the old Bruce Criss.
Speaker 1:Okay so is there anything else that you can share? That's public knowledge and that's going to be in that space there, not on that.
Speaker 3:There's a really cool branded hotel just to the west, you'll see, between that project and Beauchesne, it's going to be really cool as well. It's got kind of a wine theme, I think. I don't want to break news for anybody, but it's going to be neat. You know about Woodhouse. That's cool. Our building is going to have a Walker Brothers, a big, really nice kind of flagship.
Speaker 1:Now they're moving from here. I just saw that they're not next door. They've already moved from here.
Speaker 3:And then they're in Village and the Creeks temporarily and then the next couple of months, I think, or sooner, they're going to open. I think it's 8,000 square feet. As Alan will say, he's in the family, it will be.
Speaker 2:Well, and what's so crazy is we? You know, for years all of us that have lived here a long time it was, you had the embassy, right, right, and that was it. It was fields. And every time I come up here now I'm like, oh, there's another big bit the amount of hotels going up right now. Like this whole area, it's nuts. So you've been here a right now this whole area is nuts.
Speaker 3:You've been here a long time. You've been here a while. When I moved here, my wife was just fresh out of the University of Arkansas. We had Tail of the Trout. Remember that. I think you were right. There was only a couple places. You could even get a beer. We would go to Dixon Street pretty much, or Fayetteville every the end of the weekend because there was nothing else to do up here, and then I think we caught an apple, bees or a chili and boy. That was a big deal. Now we had a happy hour spot.
Speaker 1:I remember.
Speaker 3:Bonefish was the place. That was way late, bonefish. Do you remember Eddie Haskell's? Oh, yeah, oh yeah, oh, eddie Haskell's.
Speaker 2:But it's just, you just can't believe everything that's coming to Northwest Arkansas and how it just kind of just moves around all the time. You know, I would have never thought this area would like not Northwest Arkansas but where we are here up by, I guess, pinnacle. You never would have thought it would be Like we have friends that just bought and it may be in that building a townhome right there in the white yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, everybody's giving me a story about the Walmart campus and rightfully so in downtown Bendville, so all the stuff going on over here has been much more quiet and behind the scenes. Yeah, and it's going to be unbelievable over here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, a couple of things on that. So you're right, Because when, when some developers out of Kansas came in in the nineties and they bought like eight acres, uh, where office Depot is, and they paid like five bucks a foot for it, and we thought those guys and even being in commercial real estate, it's kind of crazy that you couldn't see that everything converges to the interstate, it just does, you know. And then, to your point, everything now kind of converges around pinnacle hills. Now you so nothing. Downtown benville's got its own thing. Downtown benville's becoming basically aspen, like you know, yeah, and pleasant grove is building out kind of more larger format stuff. But everybody wants a pinnacle hills address, you know, and they're willing to pay a lot to be there. So that's kind of you know. And then, to your point, remember Cameron Smith sure is a friend of yours.
Speaker 3:Hey, rest in peace. Yeah, good man. Hey, rest in peace. He would always do a little bit about how Northwest Arkansas is a series of concentric circles. You know this. Right, walmart in the center, the Defenders is the second ring and the rest of us, yeah, who are in support, is the third ring, and he's not. He wasn't far off. He's still not far off. Now.
Speaker 3:Tyson, jb hunt, jb hunt's building out their campus to maybe they've announced up to 20 000 people. You know, uh, tyson's brought everybody back to their home office. I mean, we're so fortunate to have those and then and now it's kind of caught fire, right. Um, well, we had, you know, the great recession and I was around for it. Uh, you know, you thought the world was going to end, uh, in commercial real estate. We didn't have legs, we were overbuilt and it kind of scared a lot of people off and it was painful. You know, now we've got legs, now we're not. Yes, it's great to have Walmart as the underpinning for the whole thing, but, my gosh, the things that the Walmans have done. Yeah, we always take people to Crystal Bridges. We're used to we still will to say look at this. And they look around like what's this doing?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's almost misplaced. It's an eye-opener, yeah, but these guys too, and the Mars family too, has done a lot for the area too. Oh, absolutely, and there's so many different—it used to just be Walmart, and again Walmart is amazing and the campus, but there's so many other things that are popping up, and the TV show has brought a lot of visibility to the area, and so now we've got legs Well, and it's like you know, we all used to—everyone leaned on—we still all lean on Walmart.
Speaker 2:but we have, you know, the new hospital that's going up by Bristol bridge. Like there's so much I don't. I don't think we've seen. We've even seen Northwest Arkansas blow up and we all think we have now because we remember when this building that we're sitting in was field.
Speaker 3:Yep, but it's like well, it's all relative, right, yeah. But I tell my people, like you're going to look back and you're going to say I was there. I was in the middle of something historic. I knew when I was in Walmart in the 90s what we were doing was amazing. You know, there will never be another development effort like that, probably ever again. There will never be retailers that grow that fast in square footage, ever again.
Speaker 3:I tell them, look around you at what's happening. You, you're going to look back in 10, 20 years and say I was there when Bentonville blew up. And you're right, the medical we're just kind of I think. I think we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg on that and that's, you know, walmart thing is obviously great and it solidifies that the home office will be here forever. The medical is net added. Yeah, I mean, that's accretive, yeah, and that's going to be amazing. The best numbers that we have are that specialty doctors add 20 jobs each, from a nurse down to the guy in Casey's and think about that. So that's really, if you're making an investment decision, that's sort of the icing on the cake.
Speaker 1:Well, we're not even talking about the outdoor recreation stuff. I sat through the Governor's Conference the other day. I was fortunate enough to get invited and the opening panel was some guy who has an outdoor biking magazine. He was the panelist host and Sanders' husband and Tom Walton were on the panel and they were talking about. I mean you know what's going on in Bella Vista right now, what they're doing. I mean you know what's going on in Bella Vista right now, what they're doing. I mean it is it used to be a one-trick pony with Walmart and then like JB Hunt and Tyson, and now there are so many different tentacles moving out there and, to your point, I think this is the tip of the iceberg.
Speaker 3:This presentations. You know, being an old guy, I mean I do some biking, not a lot, not not heavy hills, you know, not the, not the blacks. E-bike like me. E-bike on the greens.
Speaker 3:Maybe a little blues here and there I'm more of a stationary bike guy but we sort of usually append it at the end Like, oh yeah, and we've got 500 miles of single bike track, whatever, and then more coming. It's a primary feature. I mean, they, they built a bike culture here. You know they say, all right if we're. You know, austin has tech, that's where we're headed. Nashville has music, we have the mountain bike culture. You know well it's a, it's a primary thing yeah, I always we used.
Speaker 2:I used to ride bikes a lot.
Speaker 2:I've probably sat down now what I would always do is because I would be out of breath and I'd get to the top of the hill and I'd stand there for a while. So I'd talk to everyone. I'd be like, hey, where are you from? And it was rare that anyone was from Mittenville that was riding bikes. And in the hot summer, when we thought it was too hot, we get people from Texas and Louisiana that come here, and in the winter, when we think it's too cold, minnesota and so many of those people buy houses here yeah, just to have a house to come ride bikes and it's. It's just like they've fed. There's so many things that are feeding into northwest arkansas. Now that it's, I love to see it and I mean, yeah, it's and it's so.
Speaker 3:It's a relatively new phenomenon that you meet people, because you know, I was here when you know it was like we always laugh, like it's band camp. We made all these friends a lot of moving pinnacle, a lot of movies shadow valley two years and they're gone, you know. But, man, we'll keep in touch, you know, you know, and now people are moving in and like, well, where are you here? Oh, I lived in denver and I could live anywhere I wanted, and so I just and like, really, you picked this off the map. Yeah, I love the culture, I love the bikes and all that kind of stuff. So that's something.
Speaker 1:One of the things they said in this governor's conference. Governor Sanders' husband said something to the and I'll mess it up. It's the number one inbound per capita state right now in the country. Part of it is the climate, part of it is the biking.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of reasons. We have a 12-month season for biking. I mean, we're not even getting into fish. We have world-class trout fishing. It's two hours from here, Right, right Like we have so much stuff that has a 12-month season. We're not like out west where you don't want to go in the middle of the winter and so much within a day's drive or happy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, that's like everybody talks about dallas and god bless texas and all that, but you drive three hours outside of dallas and where are you? You know yeah you drive three hours outside of here, you can be in buffalo river. I mean, you get something that's available to you, you know. So, yeah, it's yeah.
Speaker 1:So I want to talk about collier's for a second and and you and I have known each other for a few years and I consider you a friend, obviously, but the relationship like it's not transactional, it was very relational. I feel that every time I go down and I see Collier open space for Collier's and Mary Claire and you and you guys have done such a good job of building your brand here where people want to work with you. It's a hard job for you because it's not like you're negotiating stuff back and forth with people all the time and you're sometimes in the middle, but you guys have done such a good job with your brand that you know you're well known and people want to work with you guys. I mean, what's the secret for that?
Speaker 3:I hope so. I appreciate that and it took a long time, you know kind of, to get there and to get the right mix of people. And we've got a to do right now is what most colliers' offices do and you're trying to attack it at scale. But being the biggest doesn't do you any good, right? It's just we're in sales. It's about the people, it's about the customer, about the relationship. So it's really assuming everybody has a baseline level of knowledge and ability. It's about the relationships. It's all about that, right? So, yeah, I mean, there's several ways to do our business. You can do it transactional and try to make as much as you can on each deal. Or you can say you're a client of mine. If I can help you at any moment in any time, you let me know. And at some point along the line, you know, there may be a closing, there may be a lease fee transaction, you know no-transcript.
Speaker 1:Someone in this small town goes hey, did you work with steve layden team? You should work with steve layden team and all of a sudden, right, you got 25 new relationships because of how well you guys handle yourself in that existing and and you guys have done a great job with that.
Speaker 3:I appreciate it. That means a lot and you don't cut corners, you keep your integrity high. Yeah, and you know, sometimes you kind of laugh because you know how that guy made this money or whatever you know. But we don't do that, so you know.
Speaker 1:Can we talk about all the cool college perks like baseball games and basketball?
Speaker 2:tickets and all the other cool stuff. He's like John, john, john If you're a client, but you guys right?
Speaker 1:I mean you're at all the sporting events Like you guys do a nice job and that's entertaining guests and clients, right?
Speaker 3:We try to be strategic yeah, you know I mean what's happening around here, the Razorbacks right, yep and LPGA. You know we try, we try to. That's always a great time we do a hospitality suite for LPGA.
Speaker 1:But that goes back to the relational element of things. You'll say hey, do you guys want to come and be a part of it? Whether you closed a business deal with somebody or somebody else, you guys are in a lot of things and you're bringing people through those things, which again is yeah, 100%.
Speaker 3:Hey, my partners in central Arkansas, they take people to dub clubs quite a bit. That, my partners in central Arkansas, they take people to Doug clubs quite a bit. You know that's what they. You know we got to raise it back. So we we have some of the of the box at the at the Razorback games, the hospitality suite and yeah, we we do a, a tailgate. You know, come by that sometime. I think you have. That'd be fun, yeah. Yeah, I'd like to know we're having a top golf event we're going to do March Madness, march 20th. So you guys come by there, you know. But just to kind of hang out and, like you say exactly what you say, get to know our brokers, get to know our people. You know, I think people know at this time you know I'm pushing 60. I know I don't look it.
Speaker 1:That's good.
Speaker 1:It's better than you, you've aged well, but I think they understand that you know I'm going to be there but the team is going to do the deal for you Well, and you've morphed to a point where, like I call you by hey, I'm not that close to it, but like you talk to the team and talk to Mary Claire and Alan and others, and again that shows a lot about you also as well. Like, your name is tied to the Walmart project because it's right, and you're giving this to Mary Claire, who's earlier in her career did a fantastic job. Shout out to Mary Claire.
Speaker 1:But, like it's really cool that, like you're, like I'm going to have the team get involved and help. And I feel very confident that I have the right people in place to help drive this thing Because, at the end of the day, it's you right, it's your brand, your name, your reputation, but it's only going to be as good as the team is.
Speaker 2:Well you people, right, you got to train them and you got to allow them to fail?
Speaker 1:no, not that you failed.
Speaker 2:I feel so sorry for mary claire you know it's an everyday and she's like god dang and it's just about trial by fire.
Speaker 1:Man, yeah, and steve's like, well, he was the best. He's like, hey, I'm not gonna call mary claire, so then I'd be on speed dial, mary claire. And I'm like, hey, steve, you're like hey, did you Claire? Yeah, yeah, she pushed me to you.
Speaker 2:She didn't want to talk to me anymore. You know, Mary Claire was sitting across the desk and she was like, did you just tell him to call me?
Speaker 3:And he's like I sure did, I sure did, and it's so hard because you know, you kind of give him your like I're going to run this pre-construction meeting. I was like 23, like really, you know, like I made a mess of it, but that's the only way you figured it out. The first time I presented at Walmart to the executive committee I think it was Rob Walton, david Glass, don Soderquist, I mean and I was still young, not really knowing what I was doing. How'd that?
Speaker 1:meeting go.
Speaker 2:It was terrible Three weeks later you're at Congress. Yeah, he's like. Well, when I decided to go out on my own after that, but you get through it.
Speaker 3:Everybody understands. So you got to allow them to grow and there's nothing like that, there's nothing like on-the-job training and trial by fire. I don't think, you know, you can only learn so much without just getting in front of people and doing it.
Speaker 1:So what's next? What do you anything you could share that's coming down the pike? Anything you guys are excited about? Are you involved at all in what's going on in Bella Vista?
Speaker 3:Anything going on up there. So you know Walton's announced a project up there, I think you know. If you look at, I mean you can go market by market as far as what's coming next. Just just maybe quickly start in Fayetteville. The markets of all the four principal cities have all floated out into their own. When you become more populous, you become more neighborhood-y, right. So now, if it's a hog game, we'll drive down to University and do that. Do we go to Dixon Street and eat? Not very much.
Speaker 1:Not like you used to. Let's just get back to Benton County.
Speaker 3:So I think Fayetteville's floated out into its own kind of unique thing, unique feel really, sort of around the university to a large degree. I think the university is going to probably add some more people, a lot of student housing going on. We're involved in some of that. Those are crazy projects. I mean they've got to be where they've got to be and it's been interesting watching that happen. But you know, the kids yes, especially these Texas kids seem to have money to spend, so they will. They don't want to be in those old you know projects that's happening there. Springdale tells an amazing story right now. I mean, downtown has got so much cool stuff going on. It took what 15 to 20 years to kind of transform downtown Bentonville. They're going to do downtown Springdale in less than 10 years. I mean it's amazing.
Speaker 2:And it's what's happening down there. So our daughter does cheer in Springdale one night a week. So Carrie and I will go downtown to the little promenade Gaskins. We went to Gaskins. It's great, there's a French restaurant there, it's fantastic, and all of them are amazing and they have this nice promenade walkway that there's no car Like it's. It's like you said, like unless it's like coming to Pinnacle, you know, unless you go there, you just you show up and you're like oh, there's five other things going here.
Speaker 3:That's right. And then West Springdale. We've been working with the George family for a long time. We did a project with them with a Chick-fil-A and a strip center behind. That's coming along real well and I think there'll be some other things you know at some point happening there. But there's just so much population growth to the west, so Springdale is really kind of getting legs coming up into. You know, lowell, the GAB Hunt campus is going to drive a lot of growth there, a lot of flex space.
Speaker 1:That's an interesting part of this market flex and industrial. What does flex mean for the viewers at home?
Speaker 3:Industrial is big cross-dock, high tilt wall, high ceiling, all that kind of stuff, true warehouse. Then flex is kind of a catch-all term for small metal buildings or even tilt wall. That's nicer, but maybe smaller, subdivided. You see it as you drive past Pleasant Grove. Down there there's some new stuff that's been coming up. I always laugh. Where the contractor needs to hang a hammer, people just need space and so there's not a lot of that because we're so new, we don't have a lot of old space. Most of that's been on the east sides of the market, all of the railroads, so it's in East Springdale, east Rogers. There's a lot of need for that product. You'll see that around the Lowell area, rogers, pinnacle Hills. I'm on the planning commission and we're zoned for tall buildings in Pinnacle Hills. I think we'll probably see some Tall buildings. Means what?
Speaker 1:How high?
Speaker 2:What is a tall building?
Speaker 1:Tall see some tall buildings means what I mean. How high is a tall building tall higher than these five?
Speaker 2:and ten. Like how high are we going? Yeah, what is the tallest building? We have now 10 plus I think 10 plus.
Speaker 3:I think I think 10 stories. I think the hunt tower yeah wow, never thought that would happen again. If we are headed towards austin, that's this is downtown Austin.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just, this is and I think this is kind of. Pinnacle Hills is kind of the new, like the middle.
Speaker 3:Yeah, even Mervin from the university you know he talks about. This is the only area that's set up to be downtown Northwest Arkansas, you know, and that's kind of the beauty of it is, we're so unique with four cities that grew together, but this is the only place that can kind of be the downtown, if there is one. So a lot of cool stuff is going to continue to happen here. What about?
Speaker 1:downtown Rogers. I get that asked question a lot Like that'll be the next Bentonville. Invest there, invest there, invest there. You doing much down that way, Love downtown Rogers.
Speaker 3:We typically sort of deal with a lot of national tenants the way that we're set up, and so that's a little more local in feel. But I know Specialized has a really cool mixed-use housing deal going on down there. The city's done a lot of work. Again, I'm kind of Rogers proud. It's interesting, because I'm not sure how much of Southwest Rogers knows where downtown Rogers is, which is something we kind of got to work on. Yes, very much. It's got its own vibe and it's it's a cool place. I mean there's a. There's a ton of great restaurants down there. You've been to that new Thai place.
Speaker 1:I mean it's fantastic the Vietnamese 1818, 30 shout out something collate. Yeah, it was very, very good yes, very, very good and he, he's a the owner. He comes over the table and he's great, he's the whole area.
Speaker 2:He's great he used to be a vendor, he's telling the story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the whole area is fantastic.
Speaker 3:All right, I'm going to put you on the spot and then let me go. Yeah, please. The story. And then Bentonville's so unique because you know, in the housing market Bentonville's tough right, so it's very expensive and so, as a result, places that are easiest to drive to the home office. And in Bella Vista and Bella Vista was, you know, when I moved here we rented a house. When we first moved here it wasn't anywhere else to rent. You know, it was a retirement community and now it's 10, 15 minute drive to the home office. So I think Bella Vista has got a great future into Southern Missouri, into Eastern Oklahoma, which is crazy. You're thinking about Missouri and Oklahoma. You talk about what's coming. The Highway 59 corridor hasn't really participated in the growth of Northwest Arkansas much, yet it's coming, you know.
Speaker 2:So now what is your? We have the Chick-fil-A guy on Mark said like 97% of his employees can't afford to live in Bentonville. Like 97% of his employees can't afford to live in Bentonville. Like do you see any big apartment projects coming in Bentonville or do you think it'll just keep pushing further out?
Speaker 3:I'm actually on a foundation called the Accelerate Foundation. It's the Endeavor Foundation, accelerate Foundation, and they are working on a project just south of I Street that's going to be an affordable housing project. But that's a real issue. It's not the most exciting thing to talk about, but everybody talks about it and everybody wants to meet the whole service industry, right? Well, there's a whole strata of folks who can't live there, can't afford rent, certainly can't afford to buy a house. So again, talk about traffic problems towards Centerton and Peay Ridge. Well, those are only going to get worse because people have to drive in from somewhere.
Speaker 1:So it's a real issue. I'm going to ask you the same question too, because I know you're into the real estate, you all right today. So if you're somebody that's got money sitting on the sideline and you said I want to look forward five to 10 years and I want to invest in real estate, like where, like you still think Bentonville is the place to be, you're seeing out in Centerdent, you're seeing P Ridge, like where are you? Obviously all are probably going to be fine, but like where are you making your bets right now?
Speaker 3:That's an interesting question. I go more towards kind of product type, you know. I mean, you believe in the office market. Here there's really only one class, a office building coming up and it's the visionary, when you know the hunt group and it'll, it'll fill up. One of the things we're seeing is there you've got this interesting situation of new kind of emerging market. Uh, the existing rents are kind of one scenario. The rents that are for anything new are a whole different ballgame. Maybe 2X, probably 2X on what they're used to paying. You're paying $20 a square foot on 10,000 feet. That's $200,000 a year. You're going to move to one of these new buildings, that's going to be $40,000.
Speaker 1:So their folks want to make sure that's $200,000 a year.
Speaker 3:That's a big move.
Speaker 1:The folks want to be renewing their leases, like if anybody's in leases right now with options to renew in the 20 to 25 to $28 a square foot, you want to be renewing these terms five-year, five-year, five-year at 3% growth, because all the new buildings are going to be 40, $50 a square foot.
Speaker 3:No, they call it mark to market. If you buy an old center and you say, okay, you, you, you know market's 20, probably more. And that's tough, that's a tough conversation to have. We've had those conversations, but that's where we're headed. The impediments to new construction, the cost of land, the interest rates, the cost of the materials, it's just, it's just. It's just what it is. But you know, I always tell my people you know things that can't go on forever, don't, we will have new construction. They can't go on forever, don't, we will have new construction. The markets will catch up to rent. But we're kind of in the middle of that right now. So it's tough. But good news is 1,500 people a month moving in, probably on average.
Speaker 2:Well, and we're fortunate that most of the 1,500 moving here were more inexpensive. Sometimes we used to be for sure. Sure, now it may not be the same. You probably have a better. You know more about that than I would. But, like, usually you know, people are moving from the west coast or the east coast and they're like, oh it's, it was cheap, inexpensive here, and I know it's changing, yeah, yeah, but uh, I think that's been our saving grace for so many years is for all of us that lived here. We're like, oh, they're just paying that, but we're catching up.
Speaker 3:If you're building new space you're making a bet, right. I mean, we're an emerging market. We don't have I mean we have 20 years of rent history. But not like if you go to some of these existing markets where we know exactly kind of where rents are going to go, you pretty much kind of have to believe you know. And so what that is trended towards is people who build apartments kind of come in from anywhere. They'll build maybe one, you know, and leave. They're not going to build a whole bunch.
Speaker 3:People who are on assignment for a retailer or whatever company will come in, build something kind of on a build-a-suit basis. But spec speculative building. You can look around and pick about five or six local folks who have done most of it because they understand it, they're willing to take that risk, they believe. So we'll come into the top 100 MSAs fairly soon next couple years. That's significant. But right now institutional money is they. They play safer bets. They're port cities, nfl cities uh, we've got some family offices looking, but you know, other than that it's kind of local and regional.
Speaker 1:You know high net worth folks or developers who have been playing around here, you know so I mean so from the outside, looking in like the growth is here and it's coming and it's continuing. You don't see this slowing down.
Speaker 3:You know, yeah, I said that in 2007 too. I'm sure we all did. Yeah, you know famous last words it's hard to see. You know, the Waltons do pretty much what they say they're going to do. They have Walmart and we know what they're going to do. Can you really see JB? I mean, there are things that could happen, but we've become this kind of you know, cool and that's the great thing they did is create this vibe, this sense of place. You know this positivity. You know the philosophy of abundance versus scarcity, and people grab onto that you know Well and we don't realize.
Speaker 2:So my uncle, he was a developer his whole life and he said you know, know, what you guys don't realize is you can go out to dinner in northwest arkansas and just feel like, feel this energy of mover, like there's movers and shakers, people are, deals are happening. He's like it reminds me of phoenix back in the yeah, the 80s and 90s when it was blowing up. He's like it's just when you go out there you have that feeling and it's pretty neat to hear that A lot of positive energy.
Speaker 3:And I think when people go back, which is happening now to the coastal cities, is they all come in to call on Walmart and they have some reason to be here. Or even the film festivals and things, yes, such a large audience, the show yeah. And then they get here and I, you know, we like, look, if you want a package of sites, I can do. A package of sites I can pack, we do package it up, send it to. You Got to get here and you got to drive, you got to get on the ground. We always say, if we can get you here for half a day, you know, drive, drive, benville, go to Onyx Coffee, go to Crystal Bridges. Oh, now drive to the new home office. That tells the story.
Speaker 3:You cannot tell the story remotely or in a PDF.
Speaker 2:Because I can't tell you how many friends we've had because we moved from Colorado in 95. And even from then they would come down. They'd be like why are you not coming back? And after they were here for a weekend or a week they were like I know why you're not coming back. And we've had a lot of friends move here because of that. We got Bobby to move here, right yeah, and it's just like it has a, you know the number one. I think south is welcoming and it's our areas. I mean there's a lot of good energy and stuff going on here. I hope we can protect that.
Speaker 3:I hope we can get the traffic right. There's some new roads coming, not fast enough. Another issue that's not extremely exciting is the sewer. We're very limited. We need some sewer projects happening. That limits growth in a hurry. You talk about 400,000 or 500,000 more people coming. Are they really? Where are they going to go? Do we have the utilities for them to go there? We've got to have some growing pains.
Speaker 1:Is there anything that you wanted to talk on cover that we didn't hit on today? Anything else you want to talk about with Collier? Is there anything we missed on? Unless you have something on your mind? No, I'm listening. We've been wanting to get you on for a while. I mean it's again. When somebody says what's going on, I typically try to say, hey, let's figure out what Steve Cannon can't share. I mean, you typically have a peek behind the curtain on all things happening and I'm excited about what's going on at Northgate. I'm appreciative for everything that you've done with the Walmart campus. I mean I know that you Cheers guys Thanks.