Defining Hospitality

Dan Ryan: Today's guest is a talented designer with over 20 years experience. She's a leader who helps transform spaces into experiences. She focuses on one of a kind properties that are truly part of their local communities.

She's the Chief Development Officer at Nuovo RE. Ladies and gentlemen, Heather Cezanne. Welcome, Heather.

Heather Ciszczon: Thank you, Dan.

Dan Ryan: Yeah, it's so good to have you here. I know we've been at so many events together and talking a little bit here and talking a little bit there, um, and getting to know each other over these past couple of years.

And I just am very intrigued by the projects that you're working on with your teams, because I know mostly what you do is Adaptive reuse. And I'm just on this kick right now after a couple of conversations about adaptive reuse and sustainability. Um, and just like making these hotels that are not like some spaceship that landed on some moon somewhere that's like bringing some, you know, who knows what to, you know, who knows where.

Um, it's just really nice to see so many of these properties that were part of a community. And physically stay a part of the community and then kind of change and bring some new stuff and interweave it into the community. So I just am really excited by a lot of these adaptive reuse projects. And before we get into all of that, I just got to start with the first question of How do you define hospitality?

Heather Ciszczon: First, thank you for capturing exactly what we do and for having me. So that's great. Um, but defining hospitality. So, you know, given this a little bit of thought and everything, um, I think there's a lot of ways to do it, but I think when it has a personal meaning to me, it's about meeting someone where they're at and where they're comfortable.

So. It's perfectly okay in my mind to have a fantastic, maybe luxury experience, and this is wonderful, and it provides everything you could possibly need, but there are other moments when, frankly, a dive bar Is just exactly what you need and nothing more. And it's, meeting, meeting someone where their needs, are.

And, that, that takes a lot of empathy. It takes, kind of anticipation, uh, and, and some thoughtfulness and, and a lot of, uh, reading of emotions, right? Like I'm going to go check into a hotel. Maybe I would love to chat. I'm going to check into a hotel and it's 11 p. m. and I've been traveling all day.

Please give me my key. Let's not chat. Um, but, but that's just like one example. And I think it goes across again and it goes back to, maybe I just want to be in a dark dive bar or something. So, and that's perfect. That's perfect hospitality. Um, cause you can have a great experience there too. So,

Dan Ryan: Yeah, I agree. And there's so much of it that, okay, you could have all the pomp and circumstance of a luxury experience, but you could also have that at a dive bar, at a McDonald's. Um, and also I think what I love the most about all of these conversations, it's, it's not just in a place either. Like you said, it's, uh, it's that space between people.

It's like how, how you're not only meeting them where they're at, but also. Like just being present. Um, and I think that's a really cool segue to think about what you guys are doing on the adaptive reuse side. Like how did you find your way to where you are currently and like what excites you most about working there?

Heather Ciszczon: Um, it's a, it's a really great story. I had been working at Two Roads. Um, out of Denver, so hotel, um, management company, they had, uh, several brands there. One of them was the Joie de Ville brand and, uh, there were two, uh, Nuovo RE properties being developed at the time. And so I, I was new and they said, Hey, go, go take a look at this property in Baltimore.

And it was our, uh, hotel revival. And I went out there and eventually I kind of became the person that just sat there for a while. Um, Really got it over this construction hurdle and, and got it opened and then started working on a property in Merced, California, the El Capitan Hotel. And I just really got to know, um, the ownership group at, at Nuova RAE and it's, we're tiny.

I mean, I think we're 11 or 12 people now. We're, we're tiny. So just got to know them and then, um, became part of the team and it is fantastic because, um, Every single project is different and I love that. Um, like you were saying about it's not like a spaceship comes in and just lands and here we replicate something.

We work really, really hard. Not just. I mean, obviously I'm in charge of design as part of development, but we work really hard to make sure that we are in and of a community, and we are representing where that community wants to go. And certainly they could have been something a while back. Our, um, our most recent opening is the 21C Museum Hotel in St.

Louis. And so it's a 1926 YMCA, and it's Kinda cuckoo, it's got this pool in the basement, and it's all these baby poop yellow tile, but We made a really strategic decision and it took us a while to get here to say, you know what, this pool is important because we heard from so many locals say, well, I learned to swim in that pool and we're like, oh my gosh, and so it was a big investment to come in and to work with the NPS and make sure we got all the tiles replicated and looking perfect and all of this.

But. Programmatically then we also said we want a, uh, we want to have a spa and a fitness center down there, but not just for hotel guests. So we made a membership program and locals can be there now. And there's great programs where like, uh, kids who don't have access to pools are learning to swim there now and stuff like that.

So that's, to me, like, that's where the spaceship doesn't come in, but, but we took the heritage and the history of this building and leveraged it. And you have to. poke and ask a lot of questions to do that. It doesn't naturally just come. You really have to tease this out.

Dan Ryan: And then from in that world of adaptive reuse, which seems to me like. Obviously it has to make financial sense, but it seems like it could be a layup every single time. The building's already there, right? So it's kind of gutting it, seeing what surprises lurk beneath because there's so many surprises that you could never, um, account for, but draws you to that type of project.

And why do you think more people should be excited about those types of projects?

Heather Ciszczon: Um, you have to be very, very careful with them. They, they definitely do have some added costs, but I think that there is an added, um, ROI to that because like you're saying, people are, are drawn to them. Um, there's already. an innate sense of history and people are curious about history. So it's nice to be able to go, Oh, look at this.

And you see the kind of, uh, the historic with the contemporary side by side, and you kind of are able to compare, contrast and, and think about things. And it just kind of already is causing, you know, this mindset of, Oh, something else was here. I just think it causes people to think a little bit deeper. Um, I'm trying to remember exactly what the beginning of your question was there, but essentially, I mean,

Dan Ryan: you to that type of project, right? Because most, not all of the projects, many of the projects you're working on are from that adaptive reuse space, if you will. And then,

Heather Ciszczon: yeah.

Dan Ryan: obviously, something drew you there, right? And it's keeping you there. And I see you get excited when you talk about these things.

So it's like, how did you find your way? To just to really enjoying these types of projects.

Heather Ciszczon: Um, me personally, um, back in the day when I was working in Phoenix, I had the opportunity to work on a couple historic projects. So, um, one was the Hermosa Inn in Paradise Valley. Um, dates from the 1920s, Lon McGargey, this cowboy artist, poet, kind of. icon, legendary figure. Um, it's a beautiful little property and of course we're all enamored by stories of like tunnels underneath the buildings so they could escape during prohibition and stuff like that.

Um, and I think just a lot of the projects I've been working on, I, I was working with an architecture firm where, um, they, they specialized in Not new architecture, but new buildings that had a historic feel to them. We would literally import old antique roofs and fireplaces from Europe and from other places to recreate these buildings.

And I, I think there's just, um, an added sense of depth, of character, of something going on there that, Unless you're walking into a truly remarkable, you know, crazy contemporary building, a lot of buildings are just boring. And while you can kind of put a little lipstick on a pig with interior design, you do need good bones and you need things that kind of Help people place themselves and see where they're at in time, in space, and, and it causes great conversation.

And I, I think it's just, um, history is fantastic.

Dan Ryan: I want to dig into a little bit of like, you know, there's definitely, you can encounter some surprises when you're, when you're, you know, putting the, well, it's not even putting a lipstick on a pig. You're finding something with really good bones and repositioning it and reinvigorating

Heather Ciszczon: Yeah.

Dan Ryan: in the community.

But what's like a really. Like on what type of project like that did you learn the most? Like what,

Heather Ciszczon: Oh,

Dan Ryan: as your eyes light up, I know, because, because I want to, and I'm going, the reason why I want to keep going here is like, um, did you ever see that movie taken with Liam Neeson where he's like, he's like the bad ass like action star, but he, he's like, he's going after these guys that abduct his daughter.

And he's like, I'm coming to get you. I have a certain set of skills and I blah, blah, blah. And he just, it's like really intense. I think that was like when he transformed into like an action star. Um, But like, I feel like you have a certain set of skills, and now you're like, a lot of, there's many people who are in development with, from, with a design perspective, from a design perspective as well, that like, starting from the ground up, working with just a blank piece of paper, but there's a certain set of skills that A lot of people don't want to roll up their sleeves and get into that because of those surprises that may be there, but like, um, like, give us an example of what, like, it's probably like a really big challenge that really kind of was that light bulb and said, Oh, wow, I love these puzzles

Heather Ciszczon: I think puzzles is a great way to put it. And the. Skill set for me, when you said blank piece of paper, I immediately cringed. Oh my God, no, I hate a blank piece of paper. That's not my skill set is make something of a blank piece of paper. But if you give me a bunch of puzzle pieces, I will find a way to solve them.

Um, and to me, that's far more interesting. Um, so I, I think the example of the pool was a good one. It was this puzzle in that, you know, a pool that's 100 years old is expensive. It's. It's in a basement. It was kind of weird. I had this Wes Anderson vibe, but we just leaned into it and we're like, we're gonna do this.

This is awesome. That wasn't necessarily a surprise though. We definitely find other surprises like, hey, we went to put some micropiles in the sub basement and before the YMCA was ever there, there were houses. And back in the day, they, when they demoed them, they just knocked them over. Like they don't take them anywhere.

They just knock them over. And so these houses with their boilers and other things were in the way. And in addition to being in the way, well, uh, they also had to be abated environmentally. Um, yeah, so that, that was bad from a, uh, cost and a schedule perspective. And then, you know. I think, so we learn lessons all the time.

Like, how else can we peel back the layers and make sure that what's there we can rely on? Um, whenever I'm talking with our design team and our architects, like, I've made this new statement now. If I see existing to remain on a drawing set, I'm like, what is existing? Do we know how it will remain? Do we know what it is?

And they're like, oh, don't worry. I'm like, no, I worry. Um, but I think. In my mind, it's, it's, it's just, it's fun, right? There's stuff to look at. And, um, I do a lot of work and I put a lot of emphasis when we put our teams together for these projects to make sure that the teams are best suited. And I have best supported them so that when pro uh, problems arise, because they will, that, that they can solve them.

Um, I mean, it sounds really dumb, but at the very beginning, we go out and we have like a team dinner and we all grab a beer. And time spent in a cab after you're out at a team dinner is really important because you're getting to know someone at a personal level and you get to trust them. And I would so much rather that happens early on than when the shit hits the fan because, oops, we thought a wall was there and now it's not, or guess what?

There's a column there and a structural and we had no idea it was there, and now we're going to have to redesign a room or something like that, which has to happen quickly. And it requires basically the best of everyone to kind of dive in, roll their sleeves up and do it. And so, I think if we can kind of get this team to, to trust each other, to, to know that I'm not against them, we're against what we found, it feels really good too, and it's fun.

It should be fun. Um, cause there's going to be a lot of those things come up. It's, it's constant challenges. And if it's like, Oh no, I don't know, or I'm going to blame somebody else. We're not going to get

Dan Ryan: Yeah, I really like the, um, that idea of a shared experience, because it actually goes back to your definition of hospitality, where you're meeting someone where they are, right? You're having, you're, you're having that, I love that idea of the cab ride after, because you're, it's, it's the unexpected time in that, when you have that space between, you have that shared experience, and then you're in it together, much more than just, Trying to figure out, oops, how do we abate these houses that were under the pool or whatever?

Um,

Heather Ciszczon: Yeah.

Dan Ryan: yeah. And then when, when you're going through those projects and is there a rule of thumb for those more challenging puzzles, as you, as you said, where, you know, there's a contingency on a project, I would assume you have to have a much larger contingency than normal, but even with that, I, my, as you said, the thing about the homes.

under the pool. I'm thinking, can you imagine if you're in London or Rome and you're going down and you find like Roman ruins? Like that's a whole nother level. And it's, it's like, how can you foresee that? And then you have to get universities in and professors. And, um, is there a rule of thumb for that?

Like when you're trying to model everything out in the beginning

Heather Ciszczon: Of cost

Dan Ryan: of, of that, of that contingency of the surprises, the whoopses.

Heather Ciszczon: Oh. Yeah, there's, there's definitely a rule of thumb and, and certainly we've, we've, you know, it's a percentage and you start with an enormous contingency at the very beginning of the project and you whittle it down based on, did we, did we check this? Did we check this?

And every project we go through, the day something comes up, like, oh my gosh, the house is in the basement. We immediately take that lesson learned to the next one and look, you're not going to find it there. Like, there may not be any way for me to know that there are houses in the basement that are.

Maybe they're there, maybe they're not relevant to what I'm doing in this project. So there's always going to be something new. Um, and so you leave contingency and you, you try and leave some wiggle room that you can work around, you know, maybe I'm designing and I'm thinking, I'll have these three FF& E pieces in the room and maybe we don't buy them right away so that if I, you know, have that money toward the end, we can buy it, but maybe not in the beginning.

And we do the best we can. And I certainly try and. Just ask everyone, have you really thought through that before we put pen to paper? And if we really dug our heels into knowing it and it's, it's asking everyone to climb around a building and get to know it a heck of a lot more than normal, but it's fun.

I

Dan Ryan: I want to go back. I love the puzzle metaphor. Um, and I'm going to, I'm going to go out on a limb here. Um, you, like I, studied English. I loved English because of just reading. I started off as architecture and switched to English because I was rowing. You did the opposite. I don't think you were rowing, but you started as architecture, or architecture and switched to, or English and switched to architecture.

Um, one of the things I love about, Just reading and compiling. It's really designing that essay, that argument. It's like, it's a puzzle. It's, you know, starting with a thesis, working it all out, concluding it, coming up, like, organizing my ideas in an interesting way. But you've had an also an interesting journey in, from English to architecture and then from design to development.

And is that, is Is the wind in your sails to get you to go from designing to looking at the whole, the whole enchilada, if you will, and all those surprises and the puzzle, is that because of like your, your drive to be a puzzle master, if you will, and like, kind of just always wanting the bigger picture, the bigger challenge, the bigger Rubik's cube?

Heather Ciszczon: feel like this is a psychology session and we've like unearthed something. Uh, maybe,

Dan Ryan: have your tissue, you have your tissues nearby, right? We're going to, we're going to

Heather Ciszczon: Yeah, I do.

Dan Ryan: soon.

Heather Ciszczon: Um, you know, I, I think that is a little bit of it. I, I, I went to architecture school and to be honest, I did not like it. I did not feel like it. I, you know, I, I liked that. It was okay. Here's a bunch of different things, but I really didn't feel like, where am I supposed to be here?

Because at the time also, it was like, okay, I understood paths that came from that was like, you could go be an architect and just Do stuff like houses or something, which in Phoenix at the time were really boring, or like, basically you became a starchitect and you always wore black and you were famous and coming out of that, it took a while to realize like, wow, you don't have to be the one who takes the blank canvas piece of paper.

And make something of it. There's so many roles. In design and development. And so I ended up, I was kind of doing tech services, um, for a golf company for a while. So I did that. We also did in house design. I did interior design. I was an owner's rep. Um, I got a, um, master's degree in construction. I worked in construction.

Um, And then I was back in tech services now with developer. So I feel like I've worn a lot of hats and that's amazing. I had no idea those opportunities were available to me. And then now that I've worn those hats, I suppose it is a little bit like a puzzle, but I think the thing I like the most is knowing that there is a big picture out there and I know that each of those team members has something to offer.

How do I get the most from those team members to make something happen? It's not, I'm not the one doing things. I'm the one just Pulling and teasing the ideas out and then hopefully providing the right amount of leadership and decision making that allows this team to really create something amazing. So, I'm not sure that, I mean, maybe that's saying I am the puzzler, but it's a little bit like I'm also seeing the value in every puzzle piece that is out there.

Dan Ryan: And the puzzle piece is not just the project. It's more importantly, it's the people and getting them all to row in the same direction.

Heather Ciszczon: absolutely. I mean, for sure. I realized during, you know, the recession of 2008, all my projects died. That was devastating. I needed to see something built, which is kind of why I went into construction. But at the same time, the process of developing something, of designing something, of putting this team together, can be as rewarding as seeing the final piece.

And so, I get a lot of satisfaction out of both sides there.

Dan Ryan: And then, so going from design into owner's rep and project management, management, and then kind of more, when you say technical services, that's more like that's operations and taking design in and making sure it all, it's all working together, right. In the best possible

Heather Ciszczon: Mm hmm.

Dan Ryan: Um, and then going into, Development. If you look at those two different, because what other things I like on these conversations is, um, I get a lot of really great feedback from people who are doing one thing and they're like, Oh, I didn't consider I could do something else. So like when you're in design and then you're, then you switch over to project management and or owners being an owner's representative, what was it like?

What was the light bulb moment for you that helped you kind of take a different path in that moment? And then I'll ask you, From from there into the development side.

Heather Ciszczon: Um, I think I found that I was kind of already doing a lot of project management and that as my role as a designer, I would keep asking, well, what is it that this owner wants? If I know that, then I can deliver on that. And it just kept putting this kind of owner project manager mindset on. So that's kind of, okay, then I turned on that role and I was like, Oh, well, these are all the questions I was asking before.

This is perfect. This is, this makes a lot of sense. The, the jump to developer. Um, I don't know that that was one that I would have said, Oh yeah, I can do that. But it, it already was like, okay. Being a third party project manager, owner's rep, you're still asking the same questions. What does this owner want?

And so now as, as the, on the owner side doing the developing, it's kind of like, all right, if we really know what we want, I can tell the team that. So again, telling this team who's incredibly talented that I have faith and trust in as an owner, I'm not just telling them an answer. I'm telling them also the reason behind my answer.

I want to empower them so that the day. I'm not available. They need to make a quick solution that they're thinking, okay, I'm going to try and channel what it is that that owner group wants because she's told me the why behind something. If that makes sense. Like I try really hard. Like I feel like the biggest thing I could do as an owner developer is give my team timely decisions with a reason why.

If I just say no, they don't, what does that mean? So the next question that comes up, they're going to try it again. And I could say no, but if I say no, because of X, aha, that empowers them.

Dan Ryan: I, um, I love how you said get to the why, because oftentimes in all the projects that I find myself working on, and then, you know, you're a surprise happens and that's like, and you, you escalate, you're, you're going outside of the process to try and Analyze it. Get everything back on track. Sometimes there's not time in the heat of the moment to talk about the why, but the why, and, and then if you're on the receiving end of trying like the people actually doing the work to get the. The train back on the track, so to speak. It's, uh, I just think I need to do a better job of taking that five minutes to talk about the why and why it's important because I just sometimes I just forget how frustrated someone might be because it's a lot. It's a Herculean effort to get something back on track and talking about the why.

And I don't know, maybe I do it. 20 percent of the time when I really should be focusing on getting to better than 80 percent or more because the why It's it's uh, i'm denying someone else the opportunity to learn from my experience as well

Heather Ciszczon: I think that's accurate. And look, um, I'm sure everyone who's going to listen to this is going to be like, oh my gosh, Heather, you never tell us the why. Well, great. Push me then, uh, help, help me be better. But I mean, that is, that is the end goal and it's not rocket science, which is kind of funny. You know, we think about this whole industry and it's really challenging and the projects we're working on.

And I'm not really so interested in like, here's the technical design, this or that. It's more just if we can get down to human beings and relationships and trust and why. That's kind of the heartbeat, I think, of what allows great projects to happen. You need all the other skill sets, and that's fantastic, but I do think that there's a little bit more heart, um, in, in all of this.

Dan Ryan: Um when you're evaluating a new project for your company um, and you're you know, you're you're walking the property you're doing the back of the envelopes and then you're like, okay, let's Let's see if we can make this thing happen. Um, how, I know you've said, you've said the word team and how important the team is many, many times in this conversation, like what's your process for each, cause each process, each project is totally different.

Like, how do you think about finding and assembling that team?

Heather Ciszczon: Yeah, that's a, that's a great question. And I think one of the things to back up on, um, I'm not going to profess that we've done this a million times. These projects tend to take a little bit longer. And then with, with COVID and, and with some other challenges we've had, um, historic tax credits, we, we pursue those and sometimes they can elongate a project.

These, these projects can easily take three to five years. So. To get reps. We're in this for the long run, and I still have a lot to learn. But for every project we look at, it's, it's very specific to its, to its locale. And you kind of go in and you let the building tell you a lot about what it's doing. I think part of it is having teams that have experience, right?

You, you need teams who say, I know historic buildings. I know how to work with them. I know how to work with SHPO and NPS. Um, people who say, Oh, I've worked in historic buildings, but they haven't done the tax credit work. Those are two separate things. So it's really finding a very honed skill set. And then, um, working with our operator, we work a lot with New Waterloo.

They're out of Austin, Texas. And they, they help establish, they create the, the north star for the project. So, you know, we find a building, it's in whatever city, historic, and they'll create a north star. And we, we all kind of work on that. And Then we look at that North Star and go, okay, is there, I don't know, depending on what it is, is there a certain energy level or design aesthetic or, um, is there something special about this that might need a certain interior designer?

And then you also look at all the technical aspects too, like, okay, I think we're going to need, You know, this acoustic person, or we're going to need someone special to look at this and who's got the right skillset. And then it's a lot of interviewing too, to talk to people and say, here's what, here's what is important to us for this team, for this project.

And then finally, um, I mean, one of the things that's really important to us to, to Nuovo Re as we develop these historic properties is the whole reason behind it is that we're interested in. in social and environmental impact in these communities. We're, we're specifically saying, okay, right now this neighborhood or, or this building may not be the best.

And if we come in having a hotel there with all these new jobs, it's a 24 7, 365 energy hub that's happening. How can we create? Um, change in this specific neighborhood that that's really transformational. It's catalyzing a neighborhood. That's what our end goal is. It's not just like, Hey, we have a hotel.

It's great. We're making change in a neighborhood and it's, it's, it's deep. It's. Hi, there's people who now have jobs available and it's more people on the street. It's that Jane Jacobs theory of people on the street, which causes security, you know, and safety to no longer be the issue. It was, but it takes time.

And so we're trying to prove that out, but all these things come together. And so there's part of that mission and ethos that when we're, um, putting a team together, I want to make sure someone's, you know, just. Conscience is there too. Are they interested in that? And if they're really not, then they're probably not the right member for our team.

They could have the perfect skill set, but I really hope that they share that end goal with us because it's meaningful.

Dan Ryan: Um, I want to dig into a little because I've had a couple of conversations recently. Um, like I said before, I'm just adaptive reuse and sustainable, um, development and. I'm intrigued by the tax credit work. You said something about like the tax credit work as a whole requires a whole different skillset.

Um, and I assume a lot of the tax credit work has a lot to do with making some of these more challenging buildings pencil out. Um, so what's so challenging about it and how do you just, just enlighten me on that. Like what's, what's the most challenging thing about it?

Heather Ciszczon: Um, so there's kind of, uh, typically two, two historic tax credits, um, available. One would be the state and one would be the federal program. And again, it's all behind the same mission of revitalization of and preservation of old buildings, right? So, um, like the The YMCA building for our 21C in St.

Louis was a 1926 YMCA. It was actually the model that they used after that for future YMCAs. Like they said, this is the perfect one. Um, so it's the, the program is there to be able to preserve these wonderful buildings. There's a fine line between preservation and adaptation. So that building was never a hotel, but we're going to make it into a hotel.

And for instance, one of the things we ran into was, um, both the, the state and NPS was like, well, you have to maintain these original corridors that were for the apartment units upstairs. And we're like, well, that doesn't work for the layout of a guest room. And back and forth and back and forth. And we had to give in and we actually had to redesign several of our floors.

Um, we managed to do the same key count again, kudos to the team for making that happen very quickly. But it was like, are you really, is that what's important? Is that what the general public sees as important? But that, that's, that's kind of the, the, the. The way you thread this needle is, look, I'm looking for some incentives here, and so you have to make them happy.

And also, we're trying to have a living, breathing way to adapt this building and to preserve its history. So, there's elements of what's considered the historic fabric of the building, and so you have to maintain those. And most of the time, these historic programs don't want to see you recreating history.

So, you have to be very careful about what you design, so that it's Oh, I can tell as a general public that is new, and that is old. And then in other instances, like in our pool, uh, there, all the, you know, there's existing tile, and then we recreate a tile. So, it's not clear, uh, exactly how to necessarily get these people who are reviewing it and the programs, like, it's not always clear what they want, and so you're kind of guessing here and there, and sometimes you go, okay, well, that didn't work.

Try this again. Um But that's, that's part of it. And that's part of the puzzling.

Dan Ryan: Uh, yeah, and as you look at, from a tax credit perspective, if you look at any primary, secondary, tertiary, tetra ary? Is that the fourth market? I don't know how to make up a word. But, um, if you, all, all markets have Buildings that could use some TLC and that could be adapted, reused. And what do you think when you're looking at it, if you look at other people who do what you do, why it seems to me, like, it's just like a win win if you could make it, make it all pencil out, but why are people averse to rolling up their sleeves in your opinion and taking on these kind of more cumbersome projects

Heather Ciszczon: Risk, the riskier, right? So don't exactly know if. The building is going to be what the building you think it is. Um, it does cost a little, it does cost more, right? Because you're having to shore things up. The process can take longer because you're having to get these reviews and approvals with the SHPO and the MPS.

So I think there's more work and more energy. On the flip side, I do think that, you know, you're already getting a building with character, with bones, with, with a heart and soul to it, and you just got to tease it out and see how that then. Uh, turns into the next project, so I think there's, there's a little lift there that comes with it if, if you are able to, uh, tease it out correctly.

So I, I think it is, uh, riskier, but the reward could be

Dan Ryan: Yeah, and I imagine for those types of projects also, you're, you know, as you're negotiating on the purchase of them from the owner or the city or the town, um, I'm sure that you can, like, manage, I guess most of the risk management is on how well you can buy the property as well. Yeah.

Heather Ciszczon: definitely a lot of it. Yeah.

Dan Ryan: then, okay, so you have this really cool journey.

Now you're putting all the puzzles together, taking them apart, kind of reinventing and reinvigorating neighborhoods. As you take your career path to where you are now, and you're looking forward, like, what's exciting you most about what you see out there in the future?

Heather Ciszczon: Honestly, it's just like everything about hospitality design is exciting to me. I, you know, I think COVID came and everyone's like, well, we're going to change everything we do. We're not going to have public space. We're not going to do this. We're not going to do that. The rooms are going to change. And it's like, just calm down for a hot second and look like here we are gathering again because we're humans.

But I think that's, what's interesting, right? We all know that it's cyclical too. Things are going to change. This is not a static industry in the slightest. Um, maybe I'm just a sucker for it, but I love these challenges that come up. It's, the next project I do is going to be entirely different. Not just because the project is different for us, because it's going to be historic and have its own unique conditions, but there'll be interesting new things in the industry.

Like, how are we using technology? What about AI? Um, just how do we make these projects move faster? Construction costs are skyrocketing. How do we get these things to pencil? Um, there's going to be a thousand different things that come up. And I just think that's really exciting. It, it means there's more challenges and more things to solve.

Um, it sounds kind of crazy now that I

Dan Ryan: No, but that's, that's your jam. Like that you've, you've, you've had this really interesting path to where you are now. And I think that that's really that, that, um. That challenge, that puzzle, if you will, it's, um, it's keeping you in there. And I think also, especially on the adaptive reuse, it's, um, I've been thinking more and more about hospitality and, and kind of how I feel that this touches so many different industries and businesses and other real estate classes.

And every project that you do. Also has the ability more than I would say, um, multifamily or even office to impact more people, more guests that come in and, and want to have and have that different experience. And maybe you change the way that they look at things about. Taking, you know, something that's been a little rough or, I don't know, overlooked for a long time and now throw in some glass, some steel, reinvigorate it and make people reconsider, instead of building something new, what can we do to like, take what's already there and, and give, and breathe new life into it.

Heather Ciszczon: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's a great way to put it. And, and, and I think. The goal of a lot of hospitality should be somewhat aspirational too, right? People should go someplace and be like, wow, I never thought that this could be, but so it's a opened my eyes, but I'm really excited about this. And then we all see that trickle down effect, right?

Like what happens in hospitality eventually makes its way into residential. Um, sometimes the reverse, but, um. Hopefully hospitality is there to not just, you know, again, meet someone where they are, but to also provide some curiosity and some, and some learning for people. And, um, maybe there's times when you don't want to be curious and that's fine too.

Um, I think there's moments for that, but yeah,

Dan Ryan: Yeah, I, I don't know. I just think that I'm trying to, like, figure out how to best say it. Maybe I just need to rewatch this when we air it, but, you know, trying to do some other creative things and looking at the, um, the asymmetric impact that hospitality has. The outsized impact that it has. Um, multifamily, okay, people come in, they sign a lease for a year or a couple of years, they're living, they have guests over.

Office, you know, it's, aside from people going into the office, like it's the same people going in all the time. In hospitality, you get to turn over those leases every day, pretty much. And then those people go on into their world and their life experience. And that little seed that you may have planted in their brain could have an outsized impact somewhere else.

Like, there's just way more people going through the turnstiles, I think. And I think it's, um, and I'm sure people have found that voice for what we do. And, and again, that's probably the why they're doing what they're doing. Um, but I think that there's like a responsibility or could be a responsibility.

Um, if we think about that asymmetric impact. And how can we take that to do more good with it?

Heather Ciszczon: well, and that's exactly part of. What our mission is there. So to that point, we focus on, and I'm going to get this wrong and my team's going to hate me, but there's, there's like three P's, right? So the people, so the employees that we hire, we're affecting them, right? So it's not just a guest we're affecting our employees.

If you have multifamily or you have office, you don't necessarily have. That many employees, right? Um, then there's the partnerships in the community, right? So we're working with people in the community who are already there. And again, maybe it's the, the kids who need a pool to swim in, or it's the group that needs a place to, to meet or something like that.

And they also have aligned interests and, and then it's procurement, right? So we're able to say, Oh, Hey, here's a local vendor we could use. It's a really, really great story we have from our Baltimore property where, um, Our team set out, and they, they were meeting people in the community, and they found, um, a couple of sisters, um, they, they're a minority, and, uh, they're local, and they had created a sustainable, I believe, bamboo toilet paper.

LORTUSH. so we

Dan Ryan: How do you say it again?

Heather Ciszczon: LORTUSH, L O R TUSH, and, um, it's really great. And, uh, so we're like, well, wow, this is, this is locally based. This is from our community. This is fantastic. And, you know, the price wasn't, the price point wasn't that great compared to like, we were a Hyatt at the time, a Hyatt sourced toilet paper.

So we worked with these. Um, with this company and found out that if we could kind of, um, help them capitalize a little bit by pre purchasing several months worth of toilet paper, that would get them what they need to reduce the price. And it did. And, and they took off and it's great. Um, and they're doing really wonderful now.

We're able to use, you know, a local community and it's not costing us. Um, and frankly, it also happened just a wee bit before COVID when the whole toilet paper scenario went on and we had toilet paper and it was great. Um, I think it's just a side hilariousness of that story, but that's just a great example of, you know, so is it, is a office building or a multifamily going to do that?

Not necessarily. And then we get to celebrate them and it's, you know, branded Laura Tush in the bathroom and people get to see that. And to me, so that's part of the kind of. Yes, we're providing that, but as a hotel guest, you're kind of curious about that. And it allows you to start thinking about, okay, maybe I'm visiting this hotel and I'm from another city.

How could I be supporting someone locally in my own city? Or maybe you don't think about that. That's okay. This is. It's going to take a while to get, you know, everyone on board here. But I still think to that asymmetricalness you're talking about, that that's what we're trying to do. There's so many opportunities out there, um, and it does take a little bit more work.

Each of our properties, um, we've created the role of a Director of Impact to make sure that, um, or it might be called Director of Impact. It's about impact and community. And they are the people out there talking to the community and making sure what are the ties that we have back to our hotel. Um, so it's, that's been really great.

It's, it's, it's, it's interesting also in that it's, it's often, I don't speak about it very eloquently. My team will hate me for this, but I just don't because a lot of it happens operationally, which isn't where my lane is so much. But that being said, a lot of this starts as we're developing

Dan Ryan: What do you mean you don't talk about it eloquently? I was like, just fascinated by everything you were saying. Don't be so hard on

Heather Ciszczon: Well, that's

Dan Ryan: was, that was awesome.

Heather Ciszczon: Um, but I mean, when we're doing the development, these things aren't in place. So we're just learning about who's in the community, what resources are there, and we're just kind of holding on to these things and ready to just pass the ball. When the hotel actually comes on board so they can take it and run with it and make things happen at that point.

So there's a lot of research and, um, groundwork being done during development during my stage. But it's really the people who are at the building and the operations team who take this and run with it. And so kudos to them. And again, they probably could say way better than I did, but.

Dan Ryan: I think they'll give you a good grade. I think it was wonderful. Um, as you, if I could just ask, I want to, I asked this of most of the guests, but if you could, because you've had such like a. You're on one direction on your journey, right? There's a, there's an angle to it, but there's like, it's a little circuitous, right?

And from English to development, right? So let's just say that. Um, if you could go back to your English major self in Tempe, Tempe, right?

Heather Ciszczon: Yeah.

Dan Ryan: Sun Devils.

Heather Ciszczon: ASU.

Dan Ryan: Fight on Trojans. I didn't like the Sun Devils very much, but anyway, I forgive you. Um, I like going there for games. They were really fun. Um, but if you could go back to your English major self and the Heather that I'm talking to now, give yourself advice, give your younger self advice, um, what would it be?

Heather Ciszczon: Don't be so serious. It's going to work out. Um, and I think a lot of that had to do with, I just had no idea where I would fall into any of this. Um, I think it's what I've learned about myself is that I have a need to be needed. I can't just sit on the side and watch life go by. I need to be contributing somehow.

And I knew that was in the design arena post the English major. But I really had a hard time seeing how I was supposed to do that in a meaningful way. And you know what? It all works out, right? I think you attract things that you're interested in and that you're passionate about. People, people attract you because you're in the same arena and eventually you get there and you're right.

It's completely circuitous. And I, there's no way I could have imagined this path. But I think that's the other thing too. Like, I admire all these. 17, 18 year olds just going to college. And they're like, this is what I want to be when I grow up. And I was like, man, I don't know much about, I'm barely an adult until, you know, I figured it out maybe when I was like 35, maybe, and that's fine too.

I think that's like the message I would tell my younger self. Like, don't worry, you're going to bloom late. It'll figure itself out, but don't stress about it. Like it'll just work

Dan Ryan: I love it. Um, as far as, um, exciting things that are coming up on the horizon, like what, what's, what's gotten you most excited in the near term? Like, let's say go out to like Q1, Q2 of next year. I want,

Heather Ciszczon: Uh, we have, well, so St. Louis opened and that, that was enormous and I'm so excited about it. It's doing

Dan Ryan: I want to get pictures. I'm going to ask you when we're done to get some high res photos. Cause like on the video part, we, maybe we can drop them in as you're talking about it. That would be really cool.

Heather Ciszczon: sure. Um, we, we did just get a so cool award from, uh, Gold Key. So that was very exciting. Um, But I've got a project in Cleveland, our Fidelity Hotel, uh, that is under construction, um, won't, won't complete until end of next year. Um, I've got another one in Cincinnati we're working on right now. We'll see how that one goes as we're not, not under construction yet there.

Um, and I think it's really, we've been doing a lot of work, I guess, big thing for, uh, 2024. We've been doing a lot of work internally on what our Environmental strategies, uh, to, to Nuovo and I mean, part of what we've talked a lot about here today is the historic adaptive reuse of buildings, right? So we intentionally go in, we find a building and we're not tearing it down.

Um, but we've, we're trying to develop other initiatives that we can say, look, this is our stake in the ground. Um, ESG is such a thing right now and it's really, really hard. For us as a smaller company to also say, we're going to do this and this and this because construction is really expensive, right? So do we want to, and also how do you, how do you navigate some environmental initiatives with, um, keeping your guests happy, right?

Like, Hey, let's conserve water. Well, guests don't like doing that in the shower. So. Um, we're, we're unveiling some, some kind of, we're test piloting some initiatives in Q1 that hopefully we'll be able to kind of formalize, um, in 2024 and really kind of put a stake in the ground there for our environmental strategy.

So I'm super excited about

Dan Ryan: Uh, I'm really excited about that too. And I know we were talking about, I just launched, I recorded a couple of weeks ago, but it just launched last week, um, with the developer of the Hotel Marcel. And. We're actually talking about taking his experience there because he feels strongly that if hotels had the hotels more than any other asset class, if they made up their mind to be zero emission in 10 years, he said it could be possible because hotels spend.

More on CapEx and preventative maintenance than any other real estate asset class. The technology is there and it's just really about having that goal. And then there's all these other financing things he's learned and I'm sure tax credits and blah, blah, blah. But we're thinking of doing a conference, um. At the hotel, it's very early stages. So when I, when I, when we're done, I just want, I'll give you a quick download on all that.

And, uh, cause I'd love to talk to your director of impact as well.

Heather Ciszczon: Yeah. Yeah. Um,

Dan Ryan: But I think that there's shared learnings like, and shortening, like what he's learned, he can shorten your experience. And we get like finance people, owner people, design people, and just, and then also go into those conversations where, okay, it's zero emissions.

Okay. But like, what about the embodied carbon? I was like, Okay, well, let's talk about that. And like, let's understand all these things and see that, um, perfect is often the enemy of good. And we need to focus on progress, not, not perfection. And I think that it's really exciting what you're doing. It's really exciting what he's done.

And, um, and it's all there and it's ESG. You know, ESG takes into account many of the stakeholders of a project and maybe not 100 percent the shareholders in the sense that like looking at stakeholders as a shareholder, because they are in a way they are, they're part of the whole community. But I think basically what I'm, what I'm learning as I learn more about all this on this journey is.

It does pencil out. It does benefit the shareholders and it benefits the planet. And, um, it's just, it's very exciting to me. So I'm going to, we'll talk about that in a few minutes, but

Heather Ciszczon: I'm excited about the conference. So you got to

Dan Ryan: great. And now I've set it out there for everyone. So now it has to happen. Uh, shit. Um, okay. One more thing to do. Um, but it's very exciting and it's, and it's super impactful.

Um, if people wanted to learn more about you or Nuovo RE, like what's the best way to make it happen?

Heather Ciszczon: I think, uh, my LinkedIn is probably the best. Uh, our, our website isn't great yet for Nuova already. So you're not going to learn a lot there, but LinkedIn, and then just reach out. Happy to, happy to connect with people. And I think that's what part of this is too. Just like, again, I had this circuitous, silly path, but.

It's amazing and I have a passion for what I'm doing and I love talking to other people who are passionate about it and you know, if I could learn from anyone or if I could help mentor or teach anyone, I think that that would be

Dan Ryan: Yeah, you can take your Liam Neeson skills. And, and, and share them with others like you did here. Um, but I really appreciate. You investing your time in this and just getting to know you a little bit better. And thanks for putting it all out there, um, to share with not just me, but also the listeners. I greatly appreciative.

Heather Ciszczon: Oh Dan, thank you so much. I'm totally honored

Dan Ryan: Oh, um, well, the honor is mine. And I just also, I'd be remiss without thanking all of our listeners. We grow every single week. It's humbling. It's amazing. Um, if this changed your idea on hospitality, please pass it along and share it. This is how we grow. This is how we shorten everybody's journey. So thank you all and we'll catch you next time.