How AJ Ramler Is Quietly Transforming the City

BuildingDallas_AJ Ramler AUDIO
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[00:00:00] AJ Ramler: We wanted to capture something a little bit wild because, 'cause part of the hotel story also is, is Oswald was at some point staying there. We don't know exactly when. We don't know the whole story. He's all over the FBI Fi the, the property's all over the FBI files and ACT when they just released the new FBI files uhhuh.

It's in there again.

[00:00:18] Chase: From sunrise commutes to stormy nights, from tough builds to big ideas. We're shaping the future of North Texas. One story at a time. Welcome to building Dallas.

[00:00:32] Chris Arrington: Today on building Dallas, we're sitting down in front of the most. Quietly transformational developers in North Texas. AJ Rambler, founder of Proxy Properties isn't just flipping buildings.

He's rewriting the story of Oak Cliff from restoring century old churches to reimagining a 1920s ice house into a modern mixed use hub. AJ's work blends design [00:01:00] community, and deep respect for history. If you've ever wondered how to build something that lasts not just in bricks, but in impact, this is a conversation you don't want to miss.

Aj. Yeah, it was good to see you drive up today. AJ walks around the neighborhood a lot, so if you see a guy with a big smile walking around the neighborhood, that's AJ Rambler. If you're walking around in North Oak Cliff. 'cause he just lived, actually, he lives right up the street from the office here. Uh, and actually you're, you look out on the back of our number three son's backyard, correct?

Yes.

[00:01:39] AJ Ramler: Uhhuh. So is he doing okay? Seems, seems that way. Okay, good. Pretty quiet over there these days.

[00:01:45] Chris Arrington: So, um, I met aj, I, I, I was thinking of when I first met you and you and McKayla, your wife. Mm-hmm. Had, I think y'all were pretty newly married when y'all moved in on 10th Street. Yeah. Um, [00:02:00] about like a year.

Okay. Yeah. And so, uh, this was really cool. Uh, they bought, it was, it was a fourplex, but it had a basement. Correct. Was it all, was it livable? It was that you bought,

[00:02:14] AJ Ramler: it was, the basement was not livable when you bought it, but it clearly had been apartments at one point. Um Okay. But I think probably, actually two apartments down there at one point.

But when we bought it, it was just a, a shell.

[00:02:24] Chris Arrington: Yeah. Well, so you guys did what I think every young person should do and they, they, if they can buy it and then have some rental property at the same time, that is such a great way to get started. It just, let's start with that. 'cause wasn't now, was that your first real estate buy?

[00:02:44] AJ Ramler: Yeah. So if, if, if, uh, that was the first real estate buy Yes. Yeah. Um, the, the, how'd you get the guts to go buy something that cost a lot of money. Yeah. You know, I'd always wanted to do that. In fact, when I went to Denton, we went to [00:03:00] UNTI, uh. Uh, I had tried to buy a house up there, and at the time I could, there were houses for like $20,000 in Denton, and it was, this is like 2009.

The markets bottomed out entirely. I mean, no one's buying anything. And they were houses for like 30 grand. They were like, they were dumpers, but you know, they were, it was something. Yeah. And I had, um, multiple, uh, people in my life say, you shouldn't do that, you shouldn't do that. Um, and I, and I didn't, and.

I've always known in my head, I'm like, man, had I done that, we would've had like an even crazier head start. 'cause if you look from there to 2012 when you moved out. So then I knew at that point I was like, I, now I also went and studied real estate in college. I kind had a base of what I wanted to do. I'd wanna do a real estate forever.

But

[00:03:43] Chris Arrington: you were, you were also, weren't you working for a contractor?

[00:03:46] AJ Ramler: I wasn't working for a contractor until I was working for an engineering company. A, a a a geotechnical engineering company. Okay. When I moved to Dallas. But when I was in college, I was just all kinds of random jobs in college. Yeah. But, uh, yeah, so anyway, [00:04:00] I, I learned something when I didn't buy the house in Denton and I learned what it was like to be like, ah, shoot, I should have done that.

Yeah. Because by the, by the time I left it and the houses that I had bought for that I could have bought for 30 grand were going for 130 grand. Yeah. I could have paid for my entire in college three times over and probably lived there for free and rented out the extra rooms to buddies. Yeah. Um, so I knew what it felt like to miss and I told him, I said, I'm not gonna miss again on that.

So we, we, we knew the, we had kind of started reading about this concept called house hacking, which is where you buy a quadplex or a duplex and you live in one of 'em. And, and ideally the other ones pay the mortgage. That's the concept. You can also just do with a single family house. You can just buy a house and lease out the other rooms to your friends and hopefully pay the mortgage.

That's the idea. Yeah. Um, and then we were looking at different neighbors. It wasn't just Oak Cliff. We, we really had, I had spent a lot more time over by White Arc Lake area, but it was, it was still pretty low in the market 2012 as we were looking late 2012 where it's starting to try to find something.[00:05:00]

Um, but it was like, it was still pretty expensive over there compared to Cliff. Yes. Um, and Oak Cliff at the time, um, was, was very affordable. Uh, and we bought that first Quadplex for $225,000, which is, is mind boggling, um, in today's market. Um, so when we found it down here, and we had some friends down here, we actually went to this popup that was really cool.

I think it was hosted, um, I'm actually not sure who the host was, but I think at the time, um, Amy Cowen was doing a lot of the stuff and, uh, it was in, it was in the, um, the BB bot building, but was, which at the time was vacant. Oh yeah. And no electricity. And we go to this popup for non, it was like a non-profit fundraiser, and it was like, they're running the thing on a generator.

We put the roof on the bill. They did Nice. Yeah. Yeah. The, uh, so we're out there and I'm like, this is so like, cool and organic. The crowd was diverse, young, interesting. You know, it was like people were like just hanging out, uh, drinking beer and it felt casual and, and relatable. And I think that's what Oak Cliff's [00:06:00] always had is something that's relatable to people and it feels like a place where, um, people can be themselves.

And I felt like I was able to be myself there. And I think that was really what. The turning point for me, I was like, we should look at Oak Cliff more. It's cheaper. It's a for, I mean, we didn't have any money, right? We were just graduating college. We had, I was, I had a job at the engineering company, but I was making less than McKayla was making at DSD, which tells you I wasn't making that much.

Right. So, uh, so anyway, that's where you stuff so good to have renters. It was good to have renters. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. We weren't like raking in, uh, by any means. It was a tough time in the market. It's 2012, like we're coming out of the, the great recession. It was, you know, it was, it was, I was lucky to have a job at all.

Right. And I gotta,

[00:06:42] Chris Arrington: I just have to interject as we were talking right before we got started, you were saying Yeah. That, I mean, the basement wasn't even finished out, but, but I think that's part of the Oak Cliff. When you're saying you kind of be yourself. Yeah, it was. But it was cool. There's not many half basements, no.

Anywhere in [00:07:00] Texas. And this was a half basement and it was Vegas, 2000 feet. Yeah. Window windows on all sides. And I remember going down there and just being like, this was really lots of brick and you know, a, a little, almost like a clear story window, but it just was barely above the dirt. Mm-hmm. You know, and then, you know, the kitchen sinks just kind of out there in the big room.

Correct. Yeah. It was kind of one big room and you had the furniture, you know, which kind of made some of the room divisions. But I, I mean, aj I really, I, I always remember that it was just really cool. I thought, man, yeah. Starting marriage and yeah. It was just a cool place. Well, when you had, I think when I was over there, you had a bunch of people, you had a volleyball nets up out there, the side, yeah.

Sounds right. And everybody's playing the volleyball. I think even, and Jake were talking about smoking cigars in the backyard, right? Yeah. Just, just hanging out and. You know, when, when I look at what we're gonna talk about today, I, I still see that in the [00:08:00] stuff that you're doing, it, it you're doing places that are cool to hang out.

They're just kind of, you can kind of, you walk in, you're like, I can just be myself. Yeah. I think you're the be myself guy.

[00:08:16] AJ Ramler: I, uh, you know, uh, I I love that. Thank you for saying that. And I think, um, part of where that actually came from, I think I was, I was, I've been that way since I was young, but we actually lived back to Denton in this, in this funny like motel converted apartment complex called Campus Square.

And it was where it was on Fry Street. For people to know Denton, it's like right outside, right outside of campus, right by where all the bars are. But it was just like dumpy, cinder block, uh, apartment complex, almost exclusively little tiny studios. And basically it was like me. One of my buddies. And then later when McKayla and me got married, we lived there also, but, and a bunch of foreign exchange students, because that was the cheapest place.

It was like, I remember it was like 300, 320 $5 All bills paid. Yeah. And I just, just think [00:09:00] about that. It was wild. But there was this really cool community and that was there. And I think part of that was about the different cultures that were coming together. Um, in one place. We had people from literally, literally all over the world.

I mean, 'cause it's all these, it had different, interesting. It was totally interesting. Different stories. Yeah. And then, and mixed in, there were a handful of people that were like, on disability. So you'd have like, you know, someone that was like a little bit crazy, but they'd still hang out, you know, or, or someone that was like a little, you know, some, someone that was like, you know, maybe they're an alcoholic and they're like, kind of hanging on and this is their spot and they're hanging out with the pool with me, Mikayla, my buddy, and a bunch of foreign exchange students.

And it was just real eclectic, but it, it felt non-judgmental. If that makes sense,

[00:09:43] Chris Arrington: you know? Oh, oh. Well, you know, I mean, the, the stereotype of Dallas is, is rich, right? Yeah. The stereotype of Fort Worth is cowboy. Well, we, we know that, you know, that that is a stereotype. There's always a little bit of truth in that too.

But for me, [00:10:00] having grown up in the Oak cliff side of Dallas, I kind of grew up with that. So I, I think I'm more aware of what that feels like to be, you know, what I would tell people from richer parts of town, you know, I'm from Oak Cliff, and they'd go, I, yeah.

[00:10:18] AJ Ramler: Mm-hmm. But now the Oak Cliff O Yeah. Yeah. But

[00:10:21] Chris Arrington: now it's o

[00:10:22] AJ Ramler: Yeah.

[00:10:23] Chris Arrington: Right. You know? But because I think that, that let's, let's be ourselves as just, uh, it fits. Your generation. Yeah, I think a hundred percent. Yes. Absolutely. Mm-hmm. So, so, okay, so y'all are, y'all are on 10th Street and, and you got that house. And, and so let's, let's fast forward a little bit. You've got, you've got Theo and Lucia, you got Correct two kids now.

Mm-hmm. You're, um, you know, we, we won't get into your personal life too much, but you're, you're living on the hill up back here in, I think, the farmhouse,

[00:10:59] AJ Ramler: correct? Yeah. [00:11:00]

[00:11:00] Chris Arrington: Of what do you, what's the history on that? I mean, yeah, it's a cool

[00:11:04] AJ Ramler: house. Yeah. I could talk about the history for an hour, but I, I'll, I won't.

But, uh, the, the, uh, it was, um, owned by, uh, built by a German man named Henry str. It's, it's. Um, been de I I think that it likely is the oldest standing house in West Dallas, though I, I don't know if that's confirmed by anyone. That's just, I I, that's what I've been told by historians,

[00:11:24] Chris Arrington: but, but it's wood frame.

It's kind of Victorian. It's it's got that old, yeah, I mean, built a long time ago.

[00:11:30] AJ Ramler: It's built a long, in fact, you know, for people that want to geek out about construction, which maybe they'll listen to this podcast, it's about that, right? Yep. So there was actually no two by fours in the building. It was just, uh, um, shiplap on shiplap opposite directions, uh, in a two story building, and then they would two by four across the flooring and the foundation.

This gets even weirder, the foundation, not wood piers that you would've seen mostly cut pieces of limestone or, or of the white rock over here. Yeah. Really? Yeah, it was really, I mean, it [00:12:00] was built just dry, laid, just laid on the ground and the wood sitting right on top of it and there was 12 inches of, of.

From the high side of the house to the low side of the house, 12 inches of drop when we got from the foundry. I mean, the thing was literally falling apart. The part that didn't have two by fours over the years had kind of ballooned out, basically. Yeah. It just kind of pushed the walls had pushed out.

Mm-hmm. So, you know, a little wider in the middle than at the, the floor of the ceiling. Uh, so it was a, you know, it was built in a way that we work in a ton of old buildings. We've done almost 50 projects, and I had never seen another one built like this. It was weird. It was like, it made sections of, it felt DIY, which I guess it probably was.

Could have, could have been. Yeah.

[00:12:40] Chris Arrington: We run across that all the time. We showed in case somebody's uncle Reroofed his house. Yeah, yeah.

[00:12:46] AJ Ramler: Right. Yeah. Well, that

[00:12:47] Chris Arrington: we run into, yeah. Okay. But did you have to do some structural work on that

[00:12:53] AJ Ramler: or is it, oh god, it was like everything Okay. Yeah. Everything. We did everything on that one.

Yeah. There wasn't anything. No, no stone [00:13:00] left unturned on that one.

[00:13:01] Chris Arrington: Um, so, um. Here's, I I love this question. Chase gave me some good stuff though. Um, what makes, so, so you've done quite a few preservation pro projects. What, what do you kinda look at when you're looking at doing a new project? 'cause you've done, and we'll get into this during the mm-hmm.

During the next hour. You, you've done a pretty wide array of different kinds of projects.

[00:13:28] AJ Ramler: Yeah.

[00:13:29] Chris Arrington: Did walk us through kind of what, what you do, how, how do what I'm looking for or what are you looking for, or, yeah,

[00:13:36] AJ Ramler: that's a great question and, and I've don't have a great answer, but I'll do my best. The, the, we focus on fixing old blighted vacant buildings in Oak Cliff, so it's kind of a pretty niche little pocket.

So typically the projects find us if, if, because, because I'm not, you know, when, when a vacant, if a, if an old vacant building shows up on the market. [00:14:00] Somebody's calling me and they're saying, Hey, have you seen this? Have you seen this? Either one of the brokers or, or just a neighbor or someone from the community.

Um, and then like, we don't have a lot of op, we don't, there's not a lot of opportunities come our way because we're looking for a very niche product. Yeah. So a lot of the times when that product shows up, first off, nobody else wants it. Nobody else is buying. No one else is, they're

[00:14:20] Chris Arrington: saving it from death.

Oh yeah. A lot of time. Correct. Getting ready. The neighbors are like, well, we're,

[00:14:25] AJ Ramler: we're the only other people looking at the deal is typically are gonna knock 'em down. But a lot of 'em are historic, which is why they get left vacant for a long time. 'cause they can't be knocked down. But also no one wants to mess with them.

Oh,

[00:14:35] Chris Arrington: they've already got a historic sometimes. Yeah.

[00:14:37] AJ Ramler: Mm-hmm. Sometimes. Yeah. Um, that was true with the, the Cliff Assembly and the Jefferson, which we haven't started yet, which is the Methodist church on Jefferson and Marcellus. Yeah. Um, but yeah, so no one else wants 'em. They're calling us and it's like, so we're, we're looking at like, okay, well how do you make this work?

So that's really the first question. You just show up and you're like, okay. Here this building is now what can we do [00:15:00] with it? You know, and what can, what could this be? And you try and imagine, uh, what it could look like completed and, and brought back to some kind of resemblance to what it was with different uses, typically.

Because the, typically, one of the reasons it's faking in the first place is the existing use doesn't make sense anymore. Like make, we don't need the warehouse anymore. Maybe warehouses are designed differently now. Like you have clear height warehouse or churches like aren't the same that they were. You don't have 1400, well you do have some big congregations, but less large congregations.

And when they do have large congregations, they need a ridiculous amount of parking, which none of these old churches have. So the old churches specifically are, are very much obsolete and, and do, frankly, I need other people coming alongside us and working on these buildings 'cause they're gonna get knocked down if more people don't pony up and figure out how to fix these.

I can't, we can't fix all of 'em. And, and they're hard to figure out. So that's a tangent. But when we're looking for these projects, the first question is like, what can we do with it? And the next question is, what do. People want in the community, typically within, like, we're looking first within like a mile.

Like what, [00:16:00] what do the people within a mile think this property should be? Okay,

[00:16:03] Chris Arrington: go. Go a little bit farther into that. Like, uh, it's easy to say, Hey, what do the people around here want? How do you know they're not? Are they calling you? Are you having meeting? You've gotta call them. You

[00:16:13] AJ Ramler: gotta call them.

[00:16:14] Chris Arrington: Well, what, what is, what does that take though?

Yeah. Because people think of development as bricks and sticks. Hey, we build it and Good, we're done. Yeah. You're talking about probably months or maybe a year before figuring out Well, what, what's it gonna,

[00:16:30] AJ Ramler: yeah. On Estock, we owned it for a year, almost a year before we started construction on Jefferson.

We'll be over two years of owning it before, and a lot of that is making sure. Like Jefferson, it's not because we're not working. We had to do a zoning change. We have to get tip funding, we have to get, um, the historic designation lined up perfectly. There's a lot of work that goes in before, but also it's about like that one specifically, we gotta get it right.

I mean, that's an important project. It has the corner of Marcellus and Jefferson. It's arguably like one of the, at least at some points in Oak Cliff's history was one of the most important intersections in Oak Cliff. [00:17:00] And like, I'm not gonna do that project wrong. Like, we gotta make sure we really think about it, understand what we're doing.

And

[00:17:07] Chris Arrington: I didn't know you were, I didn't know that was the one you were working on. We, yeah, the big red brick one. We, we put the roof on that main building for their hundred anniversary. Oh really? Hundred year. Which was a long 15, 20

[00:17:19] AJ Ramler: 15. Uh, yeah, 10 years ago. 10 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. It was built, the main building was built in.

Uh, now the congregation was actually older than that, so the a hundred year anniversary could have even been further back. But the main structure, it was because

[00:17:30] Chris Arrington: it was more than 10. Yeah.

[00:17:31] AJ Ramler: The main structure was built in 1915, but there was another structure there before where the congregation had met. So the congregation's even older than that.

That's where Oak Cliff's downtown was that the, the retail that's right next to that is where like the post office was, and like the general store was, and all the stuff was right there at that intersection.

[00:17:48] Chris Arrington: Wow.

[00:17:49] AJ Ramler: Yeah. Pretty cool.

[00:17:51] Chris Arrington: That is cool.

[00:17:51] AJ Ramler: Yeah. So anyway, we gotta get it right. That's getting it right?

That's a

[00:17:54] Chris Arrington: major structure. Oh yeah. Oh gosh, aj I remember when we were, when we were working on that, [00:18:00] I would say, you know, they, they had the cove lighting way up high and I go, you've got some lights out. How do you guys, how do you guys replace those? Because they were bulbs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He goes, we get the fire department over here.

No. Yeah. Really? Because he goes, they're the only ones that have a ladder tall enough. Yeah. You guys, I mean, this is gonna be a fan. I didn't know that was a building you were working on the, the auditorium in this thing, uh, the sanctuary is really, really tall and has a lot of detail work up high. Mm-hmm.

Now you're talking about getting to those places to even be able to work on 'em and We'll, maybe we will, we will talk about that project a little bit. Sorry to sort off Yeah, but I, I, you kept saying the Methodist church time thought, wait a second. We worked on that thing, but Okay. But you're talking about, okay, how do we, so how do we get projects going?

[00:18:58] AJ Ramler: Yeah. So, so when you get, so then they [00:19:00] really come to us most of the time. And then sometimes we'll know about 'em, we'll be watching it, but we don't feel like we can make the numbers work. Obviously the margins on these are like incredibly thin. Um. And it's extremely high risk. So you're dealing with like, you're kind of playing with fire on all of these projects.

So you wanna make sure you're pretty dialed in and understanding like how they're actually gonna play out. And when

[00:19:18] Chris Arrington: you say that, just for everybody understand there's not five other of these around here where you can go, oh yeah, here's my yeah's my proof of concept. They've all worked. No, you're going, man, yeah, we're gonna plop one down here, Mr.

Banker, whoever is loaning this. And

[00:19:35] AJ Ramler: yeah, getting a bank on board is like the, is like almost impossible sometimes. It's really, really challenging. Um, yeah. So, so you find the deal and you're like, okay, you try and you try and envision what it could be. Come up with some ideas like what, what logistically can this be?

What architecturally can this be? And then you go to the community and you say, okay, this is what I'm thinking. What do you think? It's easy if it's housing because we know we need more house. So housing's like an easy yes all the time, [00:20:00] but if you gonna do something commercial, you gotta understand what people want because it's, it's, it's actually a, it's a mutually beneficial conversation.

I'm trying to understand what they want because I want to get, I wanna do something they want because I wanna do something for the community. But also if I do something that the community doesn't want, nobody's gonna show up. Yeah. Like it's not like people are coming from Allen, Texas to come check out my retail space.

It's like you're really, Oak Cliff is, is a little bit of a bubble. And if you do something that Oak Cliff people don't want or need, they're not gonna show up. Yeah. And I think you've seen businesses do that here. Businesses pop up, they think they know what Oak Cliff wants and needs. They put this concept in and it falls flat because they didn't actually take the time to be curious about what Oak Cliff people, what the residents and the neighbors want.

[00:20:43] Chris Arrington: I like that. I love that, that you're curious about finding out what people really want, not just get a feel, but Yeah. Sounds like you're, you're talking to. A lot

[00:20:57] AJ Ramler: of people. A ton of people. Okay. Yeah. A ton of [00:21:00] people. And that's, that's not with the pr, that, that's sometimes like doing community meetings, that we definitely do those also.

Um, we've done a lot of that at estock. 'cause we really wanted to make sure it's a, it's a, what I would say is a, um, I don't wanna say higher risk, but it was just more edge markets. Um, and that no one else had done anything on the east side of Oak Cliff, the east side of 35. So doing a project over there, I really wanted to be like, super understand, what do the people on the east side of Oak Cliff need, want?

What do the people on the east side of 35 need and want? Because I, if I go put something here. If I just try and do bishop Arts over here, like that's not gonna work. So we gotta really dial that in. And there's not a ton of traffic. Clarine is a big road. Ewing's a big road, but it's not like there's, they're not like super, super high traffic.

So you, it's not like there's a bunch of like, people that are just gonna drive by and like, oh, lemme go check it out. So, so,

[00:21:46] Chris Arrington: so, so your other conversations out outside of the meetings, 'cause that's, that's really intimidating for a lot of people. I don't find it

[00:21:55] AJ Ramler: intimidating anymore 'cause I'm genuinely curious.

No, but I mean, for the

[00:21:58] Chris Arrington: audience people Oh yeah. It's really hard to

[00:21:59] AJ Ramler: get [00:22:00] them to come out. It's hard to get them to show up. Yeah. And then when you get them to show up, it's hard to. Because they've been lied to so many times about a developer coming in and saying, I wanna hear what you have to say. They think is a waste of their time.

And honestly, a lot of the times it is. But we're trying to like, so we work hard to get them out because we're actually trying to understand where they, Hey. And that's not me being a martyr. I have to know because my project won't work if I don't know. You really are interested.

[00:22:24] Chris Arrington: Yeah, I'm genuinely interested, but I, yeah, I'm thinking, you know, you get into an audience like that, I never thought about, well it'd been lied to before.

This is a waste of time. But even just to stand up in front of a group of people's, you know, most people's scariest thing to do in life, they don't want to do it. So, so you've gotta be having some conversations outside of those meetings or before and after or Yeah. Are people

[00:22:49] AJ Ramler: calling you? Um, so just generally speaking, we spent a lot of time and the energy just trying to understand Oak Cliff, understand the [00:23:00] culture, understand um, the people, the history.

And we have an unbelievable amount of meetings. I mean, I'm doing, I'm typically doing eight meetings a day, every day, five days a week. So we're meeting just at almost every, everyone from Oak Cliff. That's not to get feedback on the projects, that's just people we're meeting. Could be a potential tenant.

It could be a banker, it could be a community member. It could be, it could be a million of people. But part of that conversation, the red thread that ties all that together is what do you think about Oak Cliff? What do you think Oak Cliff needs? What do you think it means for To do good development? To do development that helps the community?

That's always in that conversation. Yeah. So you just, um. I think we're starting and I'm always like learning and being and trying to continue to be curious. 'cause the worst thing you can do is think I've been curious long enough. Now I understand and I'm not gonna be curious anymore. I think there has to be continual dialogue about it.

But, um, I do think we have a pretty good pulse right now on like what the community wants and not just the community that's talking on Facebook, not just the community that's talking on Instagram, not just the community that's [00:24:00] showing up at events, but also the people that are just sitting in their houses and like aren't showing up in the same way.

I think we all, that's, that's a whole different community, which is actually much larger than the community that's out and understanding what they want and, and they want some things that are super simple, like a place to go eat, you know, or like a dry cleaners, you know? It's like, it's

[00:24:19] Chris Arrington: not, it's not, sometimes aren't those are, might be the hardest ones to figure out.

They are. Yeah. Because you go really? Mm-hmm. That simple? Yeah. And. I bet you said that a couple of times. 'cause matter of fact, let this one that's not simple is the one, I think it's on Madison that I just stumbled across. 'cause it was on the Oak Cliff tour home. Yeah. I so caught the Oak Cliff Tour homes, uh, heritage Oak Cliff.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. And, um, and, uh, AJ took a, was it, was it a hotel before?

[00:24:50] AJ Ramler: Yeah, it was that when

[00:24:51] Chris Arrington: you kept the same?

[00:24:53] AJ Ramler: Correct. It was, it's um, it's actually we're, uh, I guess say I can announce it here I guess, but we're, uh, [00:25:00] we're submitting for local Landmark and we've already been accepted for National Estate Historic designation on it as it was originally built as the Wesley Inn, which nobody knew.

I didn't know it when we bought it. I didn't know it was, I didn't know it was originally the Wesley Inn. What's that? Uh, it had been run, still kept, like the hotel designation, like technically from a legal standpoint. The CO was still for a hotel. Um, but the. It had been basically around as like kind of a halfway house boarding house, unofficial, you know, unofficial, um, just extremely affordable apartment, right.

You could say. And then it caught on fire and then, uh, uh, it fell in our lap. And here we are

[00:25:37] Chris Arrington: and it's a cool building. I walked in and I'm like, I love this. Yeah. Chase wrote me a couple notes here and one of 'em said, monkey wallpaper.

[00:25:45] AJ Ramler: Yeah. Yeah. So

[00:25:46] Chris Arrington: what is, I don't even know what that

[00:25:48] AJ Ramler: I wish I could take credit for.

Yeah. I wish I could take credit for all the, uh, design there. 'cause it's awesome, the design. If you haven't been to the Madison Hotel, definitely go. The design is is [00:26:00] mega cool. It is, and I didn't do any of it. Okay. The, uh, a woman named Jen Stevens, uh, was the designer on it. And she has immaculate taste, but we, and we really, all, we even did for prep design on that is me, some of the other partners, um, some of the people that work with proxy and the designers.

We're like, okay, we're gonna go out, we're gonna get an appetizer and a drink at five different places that we like, and we're gonna go in there and be like, what do we like? What do we not like? And we all like sitting in dialogue. We did that and we went to like five or six different places, and then the designers went to work.

They came back with our concept. Jen came back with our concept, nailed it. I mean, immediately we made almost no changes from the initial design to completion. Also, the floor plan that's on the Madison Hotel is the original floor plan and exists. It exists today. We didn't change hardly anything on the floor plan either.

It almost nothing. It works. It

[00:26:47] Chris Arrington: works.

[00:26:48] AJ Ramler: It feels,

[00:26:48] Chris Arrington: it's very simple. It's extremely simple, but it's, that's that from architect background for me that it's, it's the simple On the other side of complex though. Mm-hmm. I [00:27:00] mean it, it's. It, it just is. Works. Mm-hmm. Perfectly, I think. Yeah.

[00:27:04] AJ Ramler: So, and, and to answer your full circle, the monkey wallpaper, they're drinking and smoking, there's bras hanging on the tree.

Oh. It captures the whole, we wanted to capture something a little bit wild because, 'cause part of the hotel story also is, is Oswald was at some point staying there. We don't know exactly when. We don't know the whole story. He's all over the f fbi, I, the, the property's all over the f FBI I files and act.

When they just released the new FBI files, uhhuh, it's in there again. And they're talking to the owner. They're talking, they don't ever dis, they don't ever make a determination on like when he was staying there, why he was connected. I think that potentially he was, um, um, has friend had friends that were there, so he was there.

Often. We don't know exactly, but we do know it's all over the FBI files. I mean, it calls out the name of the hotel, the manager of the hotel, the address, all of it. So, you know, and,

[00:27:50] Chris Arrington: and just for you until, until you guys go by the Madison Hotel. It's in front of an elementary school. Correct? Yeah. You know, so that's not really [00:28:00] typically where you find a hotel?

No, it's in the

[00:28:01] AJ Ramler: middle of a neighborhood. I mean, it's like, there's like, but

[00:28:03] Chris Arrington: it, but, but it's right by Methodist and what you told me by Methodist Hospital. Yeah. What you told me. I I, and I don't know if this came up when you were designing it, when you were figuring out what it would do, but I thought this was genius.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You've got people at Methodist that are gonna be there for a long period of time. Where else do you stay? Nowhere. There's, they could walk. Yeah. Yeah. There's not options into the

[00:28:28] AJ Ramler: hospital. Airbnb is the other option for people down there, but we don't have a, we don't have a hotels in Oak Cliff really?

Right. No.

[00:28:34] Chris Arrington: Um, I think that was, but that almost made me cry. Yeah. Because I'm like, people that are there, have somewhere in that hospital Yeah. Who's going through

[00:28:42] AJ Ramler: something traumatic. Right. And we've already seen that people staying there. Yeah. Totally. A hundred. But, and actually it's a full circle because it was built for Methodist Hospital, almost certainly.

Methodist Hospital was completed in 1927. Okay. The ma But it took them five years to build it. And the Madison was completed in 1926, so most likely Methodist was under construction. They [00:29:00] started and completed the Madison Hotel, the Wesley Inn. And, uh, if you think about the name Wesley, Charles Wesley was Methodist.

Methodist.

[00:29:08] Chris Arrington: Yep.

[00:29:09] AJ Ramler: So I think that that is all connected there. Obviously there's some, there's some hypothesis in that, but, uh, I mean that's my, that's my belief and I think my belief makes a lot of sense. Yes. So I, I think that it almost certainly was built to serve Methodist, and here we are al a hundred years next year, uh, and it'll be serving it again.

Wow. So That's

[00:29:27] Chris Arrington: cool. Pretty cool. Okay. So that, that one I'm familiar with, um. Uh, what's the one on the

[00:29:35] AJ Ramler: East Side? Yeah, east Dock is the name of it. It's a 63,000 foot warehouse. It was originally built as an ice house. It actually, if you're, if you want to geek out about history with me, we can do that. Oh, oh yeah.

It was, it was built, um, by Oak Cliff Ice Company, which, um, the, the owners of adopted, I'm gonna get the wrong names wrong here. I think we got Tom. Yes. Uh, um, who, the, the kid of the [00:30:00] parents is who started seven 11. Who, and if you go to the seven, the original Ice Factory on Page Street, you'll see the roof is the exact same stair step roof as the one on that we're working on, on clarinet.

So one's on page is the, the, and the page one technically has more historic relevance because it was the actual seven 11. The original one, but the one on Clarine and the one we have, it was actually built before that and was purchased by seven 11. So it would've also been one of their original ice houses.

Later. It was an airplane manufacturer and then later it was a book factory. And then it's been vacant for a long time. It is been essentially vacant for, for decades. But someone was using, I think for some storage up to 2014. So it's been vacant, vacant for 10 years, a little over 10 years. There's

[00:30:42] Chris Arrington: a lot of, there's a lot of metal building.

[00:30:44] AJ Ramler: Yeah. It's almost, yeah. This even little bit of brick, even brick, the sections that are brick, it's a metal structure on the inside. It's just a brick facade that's been, you know, so the structure is metal, a metal structure. Yeah.

[00:30:55] Chris Arrington: Okay. We, we looked at that building for, for somebody [00:31:00] Yeah. Who was gonna do some work on it and I guess they just didn't do it.

'cause we never, it never became a project. Yeah. It's, um, it's a, so it must have been a couple of people looking at it before. I think many people

[00:31:09] AJ Ramler: had tried to figure it out. Okay. Actually, um, I know like. Um, yeah, I know a handful of people that looked at it. Um, and it's been a really, it's a really cool project with 63,000 feet, we're gonna split into roughly 20 spaces.

Um, we've already signed, um, I think about seven of the retail concepts. Um, okay. Yeah. So in fact, the first person, so kind of be like a, a mall or think about, um, think about, uh, Tyler Station, but with more of an exterior focus than an interior corridor. So it's a, it's like a Tyler station kind of. Yeah.

Like a, so

[00:31:39] Chris Arrington: you drive

[00:31:40] AJ Ramler: up and you're gonna go in, you're not, you're not gonna go into an interior. The office people will go into the interior section, but the retail all ex enters into the exterior. Okay. Yeah. Um, it's really cool. And our, our first time just moved in at Juujitsu gym, just moved in. Okay. Yeah.

Awesome. Yeah, so we, we got our first group move in. We have another group moving in next month, and then most of the people [00:32:00] moving fall, winter, early next year. I think we'll be like, probably a hundred percent occupied by June of next year. Okay. A year from now. Okay. Hopefully, fingers crossed.

[00:32:07] Chris Arrington: And then, and then, um.

So then the Methodist church, that's new and that's like, I mean, we, you're not moving bricks and sticks around yet, or mm-hmm.

[00:32:18] AJ Ramler: We are not doing anything yet. We have to get tiff funding from the city to even make it achievable. It's, it's a, it's an extremely heavy lift in terms of the construction on it.

There's

[00:32:26] Chris Arrington: a lot of space in that building. 'cause they had a, they had an education. Mm-hmm. Building their sanctuary was big. They, so these three buildings,

[00:32:34] AJ Ramler: um,

[00:32:35] Chris Arrington: oh, and then

[00:32:36] AJ Ramler: that's right. There's building behind it. There's the building behind it. Yeah. So that one's newer. That's like from the fifties, right?

Forties, fifties. And there

[00:32:42] Chris Arrington: was a, there was a daycare in there for a long time, or, or little school or something. Yeah.

[00:32:47] AJ Ramler: That one actually would be in better condition, but they, at some point along the way, people, you know, um, broke into it and tore it up, but it, it, yeah, that one would've been in reasonable condition had they not gone in there and tore it up.

The, the main [00:33:00] sanctuary caught a fire. Um, and I can't remember when, um. And so it's got a significant amount of fire damage. And to your point, the ceilings in there, which we talked about earlier, the ceilings in there are just like ridiculously high. It's challenging to even figure out how you're going to work on it, like the logistical aspects of just getting someone safely.

'cause there's also, there's also a basement below it, so you're not on a slab. So within the sanctuary you're on That's right. You can't put like heavy, there's no way. And it's also raised, it's like a half basement. It, so it's raised up. There's no real way to get heavy equipment into the building. Mm-hmm.

And even you have to do all kinds of engineering on the weight of it. So scaffolding potentially could be like, that's probably where you're going, but you're talking about like an unbelievable amount of scaffolding. Yeah. You're gonna fill the entire space with scaffolding and then your whole thing, able to work on the ceiling for months when you get it all fixed up and there's a hole in the roof.

Now it's covered. But it's like, it's, it's, it's really Oh, it, it burned. It burned through. Yeah. The fire went through the top. Wow. Yeah. Kind of sad. There was a, a wood organ, which is unusual. [00:34:00] Um, and a organ like burnt up. It's, uh, yeah.

[00:34:04] Chris Arrington: All those, yeah. Well, how do you, yeah. This And it's just gone. Yeah. It's gone.

So, um, on, on a little bit of technical stuff, 'cause it's, I mean, that, I think this is fun. Yeah, of course. When you, how do you work with the city on red tape and how do you, the city part of it? What, yeah.

[00:34:27] AJ Ramler: One thing I've learned about the city is I, there, the people that work at the city are surprisingly, I mean, I guess it is probably a judge myself.

I, I was surprised how hard they work and how much they show up and how much they wanna see the good things happen. That's paired with a lot of, you know. Systems and proxy and all the things that like, make it challenging to get stuff done. But, um, when people see that you're trying to do something good, doors open.

That's my experience. Okay. That's good. That's my experience. That's [00:35:00] when people see you're trying to do something good. The doors open. Sure. We have problems with permits sometimes. Sure. Like there's challenges on, on, you have to like, educate without hurting someone's ego on like how these, how does Delta, how do parking credits work?

How does historic restoration work? How do you re-address a property? So there's like some navigation that has to happen there. Mm-hmm. And a lot of times we use consultants for that frankly, 'cause they understand it better than we do. Um, so when you're dealing with something that's like really complex like that, um, where the city staff doesn't even really understand.

Which happens more than, more than it ought to. Um, but it's hard. I mean, who, who, frankly, like the, these people work in the city, a lot of 'em are working a lot of hours and they're not getting paid a ton. It's like, how are you gonna get someone that wants to stay and actually learn and become an expert in the field?

And then when they're in there, they're always moving the people around in the departments. I don't understand why they do that, but it's like these people are constantly like moving, moving, moving, moving. So as soon as someone understand. What's going on? It's, they're, they're gone. They're on to the next thing or they get promoted.

'cause someone sees like, oh, this person's like doing good. Let's move them up. And then it's like you go back to [00:36:00] get a permit and you're trying to ask 'em about Delta credits and the person across the counter is like, what's a Delta credit? I'm like, this is your job to understand like what parking credits are.

Yeah. So,

[00:36:08] Chris Arrington: and, and that now I just kind of heard through the grapevine, but parking. Around here is going through something kind of big change. Parking form has passed.

[00:36:16] AJ Ramler: Parking reform has passed a hundred. So what is that park? So, because I have no idea, I like, yeah, I'll try and give you like the good, the bad and the ugly of it.

'cause I don't know that it's ex exclusively positive. It's exclusively positive for what I'm doing. So for what I'm doing on historic restoration, community driven projects, it's gonna help us a lot. It's gonna allow us to put, 'cause it's gonna re So historically, um, when we go to property, the first thing we would look at is how many parking spots does it, does it have?

And what can we do with that amount of parking? So if you look at the, the Methodist Church on Jefferson, there's like 90 parking spots. So we have to think church that Yeah, I know. It's wild. I'm sorry. Yeah, no, it's wild.

[00:36:55] Chris Arrington: I didn't had no idea. I'm like, okay. Yeah, yeah. Even sounds funny.

[00:36:58] AJ Ramler: Yeah, it's wild. It's a [00:37:00] huge church.

90 spots. Yeah. So we had to originally look at the whole thing and design to those parking because to those parking requirements that the city has. So if you wanna put a re. Off the table. Like it's not gonna happen. If you wanna put a coffee shop, it's not gonna happen. Like you cannot do that with the existing parking code.

So what it's going to allow to happen is, uh, put the, it puts the burden on the developer to say, what can I functionally make work here? Yeah. And like, if I know that a lot of my stuff's gonna be apartments in that project, I would've put 41 apartments in there in addition to 20,000 feet of commercial.

Um, well, my apartment people and my, my office people would be there at different times. So let's put some office, 'cause it's gonna counterbalance the apartments. Right. So you're able to think about things in more holistically. Well now that parking reforms pass, like. Well, the, it essentially it drops a lot of the requirements to zero, especially on, uh, it's going to, and not all this stuff's been fully documented yet, but this is what it looks like it's gonna happen.

If you're close to a dart half a [00:38:00] mile, zero parking requirements for anybody, you could, yeah. And then there's like, um, all kinds of different areas. Historic buildings are gonna, will likely have some kind of exceptions that go with them. Um, there's still requirements for some restaurants and, and stuff like that, but it, it's much, much, much, much less, um, uh, requirements per use than there were before.

That's the longest sort of much, much less, or none in some cases? No, no parking's required. In every other case, it's much less than it used to be required. And I,

[00:38:31] Chris Arrington: I think most people would understand this, that I think a lot of the building codes today, they keep, uh, uh, changing to meet current new construction.

Trends. Yeah. And, and we're just, let's just look at, Oak Cliff is already built.

[00:38:51] AJ Ramler: Mm-hmm.

[00:38:52] Chris Arrington: The sprouts that got done was a, an anomaly because there was enough space and they actually even had to buy some more [00:39:00] buildings. So the importance of that is that this area was not built for this many cars. And so, uh, to, to all of a sudden now have all these modern, uh, requirements for tons and tons of cars, like what you're saying, it inhibits some great, um, businesses that could be here.

Yeah. That could be here if you, we just didn't strangle 'em with. A, a new, you know, a, a McKinney type area where they, they can go buy 40 acres mm-hmm. To put up a, a new store. I mean, yeah. So

[00:39:40] AJ Ramler: I That's that makes sense. It really does that, does that Absolutely, absolutely makes sense. I'm all the things you said, I think all the things you said are true.

The other things that probably will be true, and this is just a, a real reality, is like if you have a, if you're close to a commercial corner and there's a retail building on that corner, they may be able to now be a bar and they might, and it might be people lined up all up and down your [00:40:00] street. That's also true.

So like, what people have to, people have to ask themselves. I think it's a personal thing. It's like it's some people are not gonna like that. Some people are gonna like it. Yeah. For me, it helps preserve historic buildings. I like it for that. There's other aspects of it that I don't love, but I think that, um.

It's part of, I, I thought I was surprised to see how extreme they went on it, but I think it's, it's something that needed to be adjusted, at least some. And I think that, um, you're gonna see come interesting stuff happen with it. I think that could be rolled out really good things. And there'll be some things that people are gonna be really upset about.

I mean, no one wants someone to come build a 400 unit apartment complex right next to the house and only have 200 parking spots. Yeah. That's gonna be, that could happen. Yeah. If you're next to a dart, they could build in a 400 unit apartment complex with no parking. Legally they could do that. Now the interesting thing is the first person, the first thing the bank asks when they show up, when you call the bank, how many parking spots are you putting in?

So there's still gonna be someone policing it. It's just gonna be a different person policing it. The [00:41:00] banks are gonna please sell a lot of this stuff. So unless the developer's got a really good story about why they don't need this parking, the bank's never gonna give 'em the loan.

[00:41:07] Chris Arrington: Yeah.

[00:41:08] AJ Ramler: And

[00:41:08] Chris Arrington: you know what doesn't, um, this just came, popped into my head.

It's like. We're, we're close into Dallas. Dallas has gone through, you know, when I was growing up, I really, I mean, it was a major town, but, but I consider it kind of a smaller town. And now we have grown into a major metropolitan area and, and everybody and people have moved out, out, out. But for the last so many years, they're moving back in, correct?

Yeah. Well, when you move back in, if you're gonna live in town, it's, it's just gonna be a little tighter. I, I, and I would just tell people, yeah, we want to do everything we can, but if, if, if, if we restrict, 'cause we need more. Business is down here. I'll just put it bluntly. Yeah. Yeah. We need more businesses [00:42:00] to come here.

We don't have the infrastructure to do the big box. They're, they're not, they just can't do it. They can't buy enough little things to get here, so let's embrace the guys that want to come here that are the smaller ones. Mm-hmm. You know, owned by the guy that, you know, let us two doors down. Right. I love that.

I love it. Yeah, totally. You know, that, you know, um, uh, Chibo, Dino, um, uh, Danieli lives right up the street from me. Yeah. And he's got one of the best restaurants around. Yeah. I love that.

[00:42:36] AJ Ramler: Yeah, totally. Yeah. And I mean, honestly in Oak Cliff, like you see people that are local owners be more successful than people that are coming up from the outside to exist.

I, um, I think that that's, you know, and I think really the conversation about like. It's okay for someone to say, I've lived here for 30 years and I don't wanna change. I respect that. I, it, I don't agree. Like I, I don't agree with all of it, but [00:43:00] I'd rather someone just be honest about that. Be like, I'm a nimby.

I don't want this in my backyard. I want my backyard to look exactly like it looks today. I'd rather not see a lot of change. I'd rather someone, um, that's okay. Like, I empathize with that. Like, I, I totally empathize with that. I also though, like, for me, I wanna make sure we're creating space for people that wanna come to this neighborhood.

I think that's also, and I, I don't, it's, it's not simple and I think people try and simplify it and they try and make it one way or the other, and it's not one way or the other. Mm-hmm. It's like we have a cool neighborhood and, and part of what makes it cool is the people that have been here for 50 years or a hundred years or whatever, you know, these families that have been here for a long, long time, long, long time.

Um. And that's part of what makes it really cool. And like they, and I get that, that could be, that's hard when change comes in. 'cause they're like, Hey, well we did this, but like now, now people, and it's not just Oak Cliff. I think people think about it like, oh, it's isolated to these, it's happening everywhere.

It's happening every single city across the country. Certainly everything on the Sunbelt, this is happening everywhere. People, the, the population's growing people are coming back from the [00:44:00] city. And the question is like, do we want to, um, do we want to share our neighborhood with people?

[00:44:08] Chris Arrington: You know what? On, on that point, aj, I have, uh, over the last few years heard a lot more of my friends and people that I know and just being in the business of, of mm-hmm.

Putting roofs on houses is talking to lots of different people. Um, you know, you mentioned, uh, not, you know, we're, we're kind of a little island here, but more people are coming to Oak Cliff as a destination place. Matter of fact, it's amazing what Bishop, where Bishop Arts is, right? Yeah. I have people that go, oh yeah, we're in Bishop Arts.

And I go, no, you're like, like four miles down. Alley Bishop Arts over here. But anyway, but everybody, everybody knows the name Bishop Arts now, so that's cool. But, but maybe addressed by the little bit on what you see. 'cause I do see a little more, [00:45:00] uh, Hey, we're gonna go over to Oak Cliff tonight. We're gonna go, uh, have dinner over there.

We're going to, you know, hang around. Uh, what do you see in it and what can we, what more can we do to generate, you know, some people coming over and visiting and,

[00:45:17] AJ Ramler: well, I think I have two thoughts on that. First off, I think we need to, again, like as a community, be having discussions. I think it's good to have discussions about this is good, is this bad?

What do we want? What do he not want? Um, and I think there's some really groups out there, Ry are planning, riot planning is doing a really good job, like talking about these things and trying to like, have a good conversation about them. Um, there's a lot of really good things about someone coming in from out of Oak Cliff coming down here for dinner, coming down here to stay and spending money in our neighborhood because of a lot of our businesses are locally owned and it brings money into a community that hasn't always had as much money coming into it.

Mm-hmm. That's a positive thing. I don't think there's a lot of people that are gonna disagree with that being positive. [00:46:00] Um, it's also tricky, you know, it's also tricky. So I, I, I, I think that like, it's about, I think slowness is good. I think that like we've, I think we've, in some ways we've grown fast in the areas that I wish we hadn't grown so fast in.

Um, and I think being slow listening and then trying to be thoughtful and react, you have to like let it happen, see how it plays out, and then make a reaction to what's happening. And I think some of these. Like large sweeping zoning changes have had good things, but there's definitely been some negative aspects of these, these largest zoning chases.

Also,

[00:46:36] Chris Arrington: te tell me, we really haven't, we've been talking about the commercial projects that you're doing, but you mentioned that you've also done some residential. I don't, I don't know where you are on that. I love

[00:46:48] AJ Ramler: residential. If we, I mean, honestly the residential is very fun. It's just extremely challenging to make the, make it, the numbers work now.

Um, we've done, we have, um, a [00:47:00] hundred apartments that are designed for people that are at risk of becoming homeless or coming out of homelessness. We partner with Metrocare on that. Um, that's been really good. Those aren't to Oak Cliff, but yeah, the in East Dallas and, um, the Cedars area. And then we have, um, roughly a hundred market rate houses or apartments in Oak Cliff.

Um, and they're, they're really good. We're able to keep them. Attainable from a pricing standpoint. They're always full. They're always full. We put 'em up. It just like immediately. That's

[00:47:29] Chris Arrington: awesome. So, so it

[00:47:30] AJ Ramler: keeps it

[00:47:31] Chris Arrington: affordable 'cause

[00:47:32] AJ Ramler: Yeah, I mean I think like what you wanna have is these old buildings can be helpful to fix the affordability aspect of um, um, but some of them have become, some of the old buildings, even in the apartments, have become so dilapidated.

They're not, it's not even safe. Like they need these, some of these places need to be, they really need to be worked on some of the stuff that some, and there's a group doing a lot of stuff by Lake Cliff. That's good. Some of those are, I mean, I mean Lake Cliff, I think they had three apartment fires in one year at one point.

I mean, it's like that's, you can't, these properties [00:48:00] need to be fixed up some. And, um, and so, but, but they don't need to be sworn down necessarily. 'cause when they, they can be fixed up and leased at a rate that's still much more affordable than the big box apartments they're building all over the place.

So, uh, I think there's a balance there on like, um, a. Fixing 'em. And I, I, I think there's a good thing to come in and fix those things and, and get them available at a Right. A rate that's reasonable. Yeah. Which I think is happening more and more. There's more and more groups coming in and doing that kind of work.

[00:48:27] Chris Arrington: I'm gonna get your opinion on something. Yeah. Let's go. Because you mentioned the big box. Yeah. The biggie, big boys. We've got thousands of new apartments. Mm-hmm. Yeah. How does that affect you? How do you think it's affected Oak Cliff? What's your, what's your take on, on all the apartments? I mean, the big ones,

[00:48:45] AJ Ramler: so generally speaking from an economic standpoint, supply and demand creates affordability, supply, more supply creates affordability.

I think without these apartment complexes, we could be, if they, if, if you had looked at the last 15 years where they've built so [00:49:00] many of these huge ones, if they had not built those, I mean, I can't imagine what the city of Dallas would be dealing with from a housing standpoint at this point. Because you just, would you think the rates would've been really high?

I think they would be crazy high. I think they could be, or you just would have, um, maybe like a, um, just people leaving because they got where they would get so high that people are just gonna leave. Yeah. Um, okay. And it would push, push people out? I think so. I think that there's a, there's a kind of, I, it's nuanced, but I think that's part of the conversation.

I have concerns about what they're gonna be in 20 years. Yeah. I mean, I think we're, we're kind of in uncharted territories. There's some stuff that's older in Addison, I think you could go look at and say, okay, how is this, how is this age? How has this been taken care of? Um, but there's also stuff, the stuff built in the eighties is, I mean, most of that's not great now.

So, and these are like little villages. I mean, they're like, not villages. They're like, they're like neighborhoods. I mean, they are, if you think about an apartment complex that's 450 units, that's an entire neighborhood. Mm-hmm. And I think that's interesting. I mean, that's like a, that's, that's something that's we haven't dealt with before.

I also [00:50:00] like, yeah. I think there's a lot of questions around the apartments that I, I, I don't know how they're gonna age. Um. I don't know, you know, that you have to have a lot of stewardship from the management companies and the asset management companies to make sure that these things stay maintained, stay, stay safe.

[00:50:18] Chris Arrington: Um, okay. And so on the residential side, yeah. What would be your advice for young couple moving to Oak Cliff? What, what can they do nowadays? Because you were talking about $225,000. Right? That's not happening now, which you can't even find anymore. Right? Yeah. You know, and you know, and I mean, um, hopefully salaries have gone up a little bit, but I don't know if they've gone up as much as real estate's gone up.

[00:50:48] AJ Ramler: No. The gap's grown for sure on what you can afford and what, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you're seeing that? Oh yeah. I mean, if you look at Yes, a hundred percent. I'm seeing that. Yeah. So, but one, here's what I would tell first off. [00:51:00] Um, I, I, I, I think the younger generation's can do some really cool things. I think that thinking about the world differently, I hate that I'm like feeling less and less, like I'm part of the younger generation, but, uh, not kids I know, I know, but I watch 'em, the way they move, the way they think about stuff, the way they think about community, the way they activate.

I think all of it's really, really, really positive. But let me tell you one thing that I think that they're, that actually even my generation fails on a lot. They have this expectation that they're gonna start where they're, where they left off when they, they think that they're gonna start, their first house is gonna be the house they moved out of when they turned 18.

But like, their parents, their parents, they think it's gonna be that they, they think it's gonna be a four bedroom house. And, and, and Kessler they think it's gonna be, you know, they, and that's just not real. And that's not what their parents did. Yeah. Their parents didn't start in the house that they ended up in.

Their parents started by like, you know, no. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I think, I don't know if, I don't know if like, um, I don't know if, if the, your generation like didn't do a good job communicating that. 'cause like what happened? Like, I don't know why all these millennials just think that [00:52:00] like, they should be able to have X, X and y.

But they do. They they definitely do. And, and even when you talk to someone that says they wanna buy a house, you're like, well, what do you want? Well, I want a yard. I want this. I want at least, it's gotta have two bathrooms. I need an office and I need, and it's like, well, that's not how this works. Like I have a house right now on the market today.

Yeah. Two bedroom, one bathhouse. All new electrical. All new plumbing is fine. It's not pretty. It doesn't cut a great yard. It's on the east side of 35, $150,000. No one's buying it. Think about that like it is here. The affordable housing is here. It doesn't match what people want. It's really not about the housing.

It is partially about the housing, but it's not that simple. Yeah. I have a house right now, it's, it's literally listed it with one agent didn't sell back in the market with another agent. It's not like it's been sitting there for a week. It's been out there. Yeah. And

[00:52:55] Chris Arrington: hardwood floors. That's incredibly affordable.

It's incredible affordable. [00:53:00] Like aj, you're blowing my mind that you would have a house that just a house in Dallas that you could sell for $150,000. I didn't think it existed. I mean, yeah. Bryce's house right next to you guys is 900 square feet. Mm-hmm. It was, it was nothing. It was walls and floors and a roof.

And we went and did everything to it. Mm-hmm. And we were at 200,000 and we had to, we had to jump on it. We had five people behind us. Yeah. That wanted to get. Four years ago I was thinking about buying it. Were you, we beat aj. That was a good deal. It, yeah, it was a And I thought, well, whatever. And Oh my gosh.

[00:53:50] AJ Ramler: Yeah. It's, it's, it's, that's what I'm saying there, is, there, is it a disconnect between expectations and affordability? And I think that, [00:54:00] I don't know why. I don't know if it's a, it's a, I don't know what, what change, what made the millennials say, I need this. You know,

[00:54:06] Chris Arrington: aj

[00:54:06] AJ Ramler: I, you got

[00:54:07] Chris Arrington: me thinking about when, when I was growing up and I thought, well, I would, I mean, I bought a house, um, outta college, not too far outta college.

That was about like the house I grew up in. But I thought, but that's the same thing. I bought a house that was like the house I grew up in. Mm-hmm. But my parents. Didn't buy a house like that. Now. Uh, I bought it and I was doing a fix up. I was kind of doing like you Yeah. So it was, it was a business venture.

If anything, I, my parents probably started in some tiny little apartment. Mm-hmm. That's what they started in. Yeah. I started in a house. Right. Yeah. Because that's true. Yeah. What I was used to. Right. Well, now we moved to bigger houses. Our kids were like, I mean, I was very, I was very proud of Bryce to move into that, that little house.

But you know what? He loved it. Yeah, it works fine.

[00:54:59] AJ Ramler: [00:55:00] It

[00:55:00] Chris Arrington: works.

[00:55:00] AJ Ramler: And that's the thing. Like what do, what do you He's got

[00:55:02] Chris Arrington: ownership. Yeah. I'm really amazed. Yeah. At how many, and he's, um, 30 years old. Uh, and, and I'm amazed at how many of his friends, I'm like, oh yeah. So there's still an apartment. Still an apartment.

Still an apartment. And I'm thinking, you know, I need to start building some equity.

[00:55:18] AJ Ramler: Mm-hmm.

[00:55:18] Chris Arrington: I mean, you know, not that you're behind by any means. You can, you know, catch up. But, um. That's good to know. There's affordable stuff out there. Yeah. And I, maybe it's not exactly where you want to be.

[00:55:31] AJ Ramler: It, it's not, it might not be,

[00:55:32] Chris Arrington: you know, I think it's great, but it might, it may not be.

Maybe try a little bit. Might Yeah.

[00:55:35] AJ Ramler: I, I, I, it's, it, honestly, it, it's a little bit confusing. Um, uh, but you hear it all the time. I can't afford a house I can't afford. Well, you can, you just can't afford the house that you want, which is fair also, like if you wanna live in an apartment and beat that, do that lifestyle because you can't get the one you want yet.

But it's gonna be challenging to ever get the one you want. If you don't start with something, buy the 150,000 house, live in it for three years, [00:56:00] pay some net down. Hopefully it goes in value. You sell it, then you get to something that, that's closer to what your magic dream house is and you, you know, you step up to that.

[00:56:07] Chris Arrington: Let, okay, let me, this just came across this, um, I grew up in Oak Cliff, a little farther south, kind of by, um, almost a Red Bird airport, and there's some incredible. Um, houses down there were built incredibly well. Are so, and I know a lot the pro, all the projects we've talked about, you guys are really far North Oak Cliff.

Do, are y'all doing anything south, like, like farther south than the north part of Oak Cliff, or is it pretty well

[00:56:38] AJ Ramler: more focused right now on the stuff like the, the east of 35, which, which is north, like in that kind of pocket, right by the sea. But you're north

[00:56:45] Chris Arrington: of

[00:56:45] AJ Ramler: Illinois? Yeah, we're north of Illinois on that side of 35.

Um, I'm trying to think, we, we, because there's there's some possibilities. Yeah. I think there's a ton of, something is going on with,

[00:56:57] Chris Arrington: with Red Bird Mall.

[00:56:58] AJ Ramler: Yeah. Yeah. You haven't been out [00:57:00] to Redbird. You gotta go out to Redbird. It's, it's really interesting. I, I think that this, I don't, for me it's like probably more of like a, um, um, theoretical thing.

I just believe that humans desire to be close to the heartbeat of, in, from an urban standpoint. So I, I really believe in the energy aspect of being close to downtown. It's not like I think that you could go. South, east, west, north, whatever direction you want to go and, and, and do good work and, and do projects that make sense financially and for the community.

For me, it's a personal thing where I'm like, I like the energy. I like the way something feels like when it's close to downtown. Um, I like the grittiness that can come with like, being in a really, really urban area. Um, so that's like probably, it's probably more of just an emotional aspect of the way I think about, uh, these projects.

I like to be close.

[00:57:49] Chris Arrington: Well, and you know, on a, just on a, a good business model, it sounds like you know your lane, you've been successful with it even though it's pretty high [00:58:00] risk, the things you're doing, uh, to, to start a whole nother market. People, people, people tip me all the time, Chris, you're doing roofing.

Why don't you have a plumbing company? Why don't you have an HVC company? I go. Because I have a roofing company, right. We know how to do this. And to start another company is a whole nother thing. Yeah. Really development. You could probably speak to this. You go to another market.

[00:58:24] AJ Ramler: Mm-hmm.

[00:58:25] Chris Arrington: That's a, that's a, you kind of starting over.

I mean, you got the, you know how it works, but good grief.

[00:58:31] AJ Ramler: Yeah. You could start over faster the second time, but yeah, it, it would be like starting over, especially when you're working in a community doing community oriented developments that are like nuanced. Like you have to understand a lot about the community to even be able, so, so they have, we like moved to a different market.

It's like I gotta. Understand, which can take years. Well,

[00:58:51] Chris Arrington: and you mentioned earlier you got people that see a project they call you, they know, Hey, AJ does this, right? Yeah. You go to [00:59:00] another place and go, who's aj?

[00:59:01] AJ Ramler: Who's aj? Right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So, so you, you really, and also, I don't know that I'd be interested in working somewhere that's not in my back.

Like, I'm not in my backyard. Like I wanna work on the community I live in.

[00:59:10] Chris Arrington: Yeah.

[00:59:10] AJ Ramler: That's what makes it fun. Right. Okay.

[00:59:12] Chris Arrington: Aj, who on, on a personal level? Yeah, I'm ready. Who's, who's helped you? Who, who are the people in your life that you go? I am so glad I met

[00:59:24] AJ Ramler: whoever. Okay. Here's a, um, probably something you don't expect, um, is, uh, Keith Jaki, RIP.

He, uh, you know, he was a kinda an outspoken person. Probably not liked by, um, some people. He took the time to teach me a lot about the old properties, how they worked, and I would go sit and talk with him on his porch and, uh, drink beer of course. Required. Uh, yeah. And, uh, he, for those of you who know Keith Yeah.

[00:59:53] Chris Arrington: Or knew Keith. Yeah. Keith passed away, what, two or three years ago? Yeah, probably three ago. Years ago. Yeah. Great guy. Yeah, Keith.

[00:59:59] AJ Ramler: He took [01:00:00] the time to, and frankly, when some others wouldn't, um, he took the time to really show me the ropes and teach me about the way he thought about things. I didn't agree with him about everything, but he really understood old properties.

He understood the neighborhood he was involved in the neighborhood. And, um, so I think he was one of those people that I think helped me a lot, especially in the early, like first, first five years. Um, you

[01:00:22] Chris Arrington: know what I bet you loved about him was that he had time. Yeah. Yeah, he did. He had time to sit down and talk to you.

Yeah. He loved it.

[01:00:29] AJ Ramler: No, he loved it. That was cool. Like that was part of what made it good is like. He was like, let's get together, let's talk. You know, these other people that have helped me immensely. I mean, um, Dave Spence has helped me even on this recent project, came out, spent the time, walked through it, gave me really good feedback, took, incorporated some of that feedback already.

That's been positive. Um, and he has like, just unbelievable eye for design and understand he cares so much about the preservation aspect of the building. Mm-hmm. [01:01:00]

[01:01:00] Chris Arrington: Um, I've told Dave, I can tell your

[01:01:01] AJ Ramler: buildings.

[01:01:02] Chris Arrington: Yeah. Dave, your buildings are handsome.

[01:01:05] AJ Ramler: Yes. You literally can, they're handsome. You can drive around, you can drive around Oak Cliff and be like, that has, uh, Dave Spence's hand print on it.

I mean, a hundred percent. Yeah. Um, and they look good and, and they don't look and he doesn't bastardize any of it. He keeps it like true to form. And you see him out there with his clippers working on the Vitex and you know, and it's like, I honked at

[01:01:25] Chris Arrington: and met Davis in

[01:01:26] AJ Ramler: Cedar Hill the other day 'cause he was doing some yard work.

Yeah. Like

[01:01:30] Chris Arrington: Dave.

[01:01:30] AJ Ramler: Yeah, I love that. I mean, I love that. And I think that he's, you know, um, someone that's, I respect a lot the, the way he does the projects themselves and the way he thinks about the projects. Um, he, he's a long, he thinks in the long term he's not thinking in years, he's thinking in decades.

And I think that that's something really respectable. So those, those two guys, I think would be people I've kind of looked up to within my field.

[01:01:54] Chris Arrington: So, um, I hear you. I mean, your passion is your [01:02:00] neighborhood. You, you live here, you do a lot of projects here, but you guys, you and McKayla have got projects other places.

What, what, uh, what got you.

[01:02:15] AJ Ramler: Kind of out of town. Yeah. I mean, the first thing I would say is McKayla has other projects, other places. Okay. See, uh, I focus on the Oak Cliff stuff. She works on the stuff kind of outside of Oak Cliff. Those are her, those are her babies out there. But, uh, I can tell you a little bit about 'em 'cause they're very interesting.

She's, uh, she's working on the Lancaster Town Square. Um, and she's, um, that project's completed. 'cause

[01:02:36] Chris Arrington: a tornado came through there. No, not that a tornado. She

[01:02:40] AJ Ramler: just grew up there. So she's, she's, I mean the tornado did come through, but that's been like 30 years ago. Was it? Oh, time flies, right? Yeah, true. That good grief.

But, uh, you know, she grew up there. She moved from, you know, when her parents left Oak Cliff, she grew, she was born here in Oak Cliff, but then when her parents left, they went to Lancaster. So I think it's a, it was kind of a coming home moment for [01:03:00] her when she went there. Oh, okay. To work on that square of her old hood.

Yeah. Her mom had a shop in the Square, her dad office in the square.

[01:03:06] Chris Arrington: Oh, that's right. 'cause I went by, um, Carlos's office one time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's home

[01:03:11] AJ Ramler: for her in a lot of ways. Okay. So she, um. Then she did a really cool project in Denton with a, it's like a bike shop, coffee shop, tattoo shop combo.

So kinda like back to school? Uh, yeah, back to, yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It was with a friend that we had from Denton. So we worked with him on that, or she worked with him on that. Um, and then she has a new project That's very exciting. You know what, I think I can talk about this. She's posted stuff about it. The, uh, she, she, she's got a a If we have to cut it later, we'll cut it.

Yeah. We have to cut it. We might, we might have to give permission. I'll come hat in hand.

[01:03:42] Chris Arrington: Ask. Ask. Yeah. Ask her, uh, forgiveness later. Yeah.

[01:03:46] AJ Ramler: She has a, um, a very cool, I mean an extremely cool hotel in Glen Rose, um, that's, uh, almost a hundred years old. Been vacant for a long time. Okay. So the same, kinda very [01:04:00] similar to the Madison.

Um, um, architecturally, I'd say it's more interesting than the Madison, actually it's three stories, but it's similar layout. Like it is the same like long corridor. It's very cool. It's very, very cool. And Glen Ross is cool. We go camping out there a lot. That's how we, that's how she originally found it was Okay.

Um, and, uh, I think it'll be like a really epic project. So she's been, she's been doing her, she, she's been doing own projects since around like 20, 21, I think probably. Um,

[01:04:26] Chris Arrington: the same kind of feel taken, something that totally needs to come back.

[01:04:29] AJ Ramler: It's a very, yeah, very similar historic focus on historic adaptive reuse projects, um, just in different markets.

So she's, you know, which requires a little bit more, uh, dynamic because you have to understand how to move between these markets. Yeah. Um, but yeah, they're really cool. The hotel's gonna be epic. Wow. Yeah. And if you haven't been down to Lancaster, there's, she, she brought Lado to Lancaster. So for my old, yeah, for old Cliff people, she brought Leidos to Lancaster.

They opened it and I think it's been like absolutely crushing. Oh, that is awesome. She got some barbecue down there. She got a lot of cool [01:05:00] concepts. And then some other people have come in like another cool shop just open that does like, uh, I think they're called way, get the name wrong. I can't remember name, but it's like a really cool, like Japanese coffee concept.

Well,

[01:05:09] Chris Arrington: if you know Mikayla, she, she's the influencer girl. Oh yeah. You sit down with her and she mesmerizes you and she says you need to be here. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. My gosh. I think I do. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. She definitely knows how to win people over. Oh yeah. Gosh. She is. She is. She is a doll. Um, okay, AJ, is there anything that we've left off today?

Anything you wanna talk about that we hadn't talked about? I mean, we've covered a lot. Yeah. Which is

[01:05:37] AJ Ramler: great. Uh, I've really enjoyed it.

[01:05:40] Chris Arrington: Good.

[01:05:40] AJ Ramler: Yeah,

[01:05:40] Chris Arrington: me too. Yeah,

[01:05:41] AJ Ramler: it's fun. I love talking about this stuff. You

[01:05:43] Chris Arrington: see AJ walking around the neighborhood, just say,

[01:05:45] AJ Ramler: hi, look for my Dallas hats. There you go. That's it.

There, there. Go get the, uh, uh, and you can honk at me. If you honk quietly. I'll wave. If you honk loud, I'll give you the Texas howdy. So, oh my

[01:05:53] Chris Arrington: gosh. I've learned, I've learned not to do. I honk at people when I'm behind them, and all [01:06:00] my old friends are old, and then I scare 'em. Yeah. Give 'em heart attacks.

Mm-hmm. Right. Exactly. And now I wait, flying in front of 'em and I go, it's me. Yeah. All right. Yeah. We want to thank AJ Rambler for being here today and talking about the projects that he's passionate about, that he works on in his neighborhood. He's taken, uh, buildings that really, really need help that are not getting support from anyone else and, and spending the time.

What I like is that he's, he's taken the time to find the people that are gonna use the project, uh, that are gonna be close in park proximity to it, that are gonna feel it in their everyday life and see what they want. And, you know, guys, when it, I always tell, uh, my guys here at Arrington Roofing, um, I've never done a project for a roof.

I've always done a project for a person. And even though, uh, AJ and I are both dealing with bricks and sticks and, and our built [01:07:00] environment, it really all comes down to the people. And, uh, it's just, it's, it's heartwarming to see a developer who's gonna take a property that's gonna be there for a long period of time and is gonna be an influence on the way we live and finds out.

The human element of it and, and what it's gonna really mean to people and, and make it work for the community. Aj, this is just, yeah, thank you so much for having me. It was great. Been a really fun, been

[01:07:26] AJ Ramler: very fun. Cool.

[01:07:27] Chris Arrington: So tune in next week for more building Dallas. Might have been nice.

[01:07:34] Chase: Thanks for tuning into Building Dallas, where we bring the stories that Shape North Texas. Subscribe, share, and stay connected. Until next time, keep Building. Building. Dallas is presented by Arrington Roofing. Keeping North Texas covered rain or shine.