Ryan: 0:20

Hey everybody, ryan Gown here, founder and chairman of Paradigm. Thank you very much for watching the Paradigm Shift podcast. I'm extremely excited today. As you can tell, I'm excited it's in my voice. I have Rob Sampson here. He is the director of our architectural firm that is overseeing not only the project that we're sitting in at Paradigm Storage but, for the most part, every project we have moving forward, including the barn caves, which is one of the reasons why you're here to watch this podcast. But, rob, if you don't mind, kind of introduce yourself, share with everybody your background, how long you've been in the business, and I'll just keep throwing more questions at you.

Rob: 0:52

All right, thanks, ryan. I appreciate you having me today, absolutely. My name is Rob Sampson. I'm with Selberg Associates. I'm the vice president. I've been in Mojave County for 25 years. I started with Selberg Associates in June of 1999.

Ryan: 1:09

So a long time ago, that's when everybody was worried about the whole technology crash from 1999 to 2000.

Rob: 1:14

Yeah, yeah, we partied like it was 1999 a lot of times.

Ryan: 1:16

There you go. There's a song out there, I think there is, yeah, sure thing.

Rob: 1:19

So yeah, I've been working with Selberg Associates that long we had our founder had died in a boating accident in Lake Havasu and I was able to take over the company and keep it running and it's been a great blessing and a lot of fun. Honestly, every day is a blessing. We come to work, we get to.

Ryan: 1:34

You know, I don't think a lot of people know that. So the gentleman who died that owned the architectural firm was the guy who had Lickety Split yeah he was riding on Lickety Split. Okay.

Rob: 1:43

It was the last run of the day, from what we've been told. He decided to go out and kind of feel the excitement.

Ryan: 1:50

Push the envelope.

Rob: 1:51

Yeah and fortunes happen. So out of bad opportunity or bad instances situations comes good opportunities. So that's why we're here today.

Ryan: 2:06

So tell us a little bit about the background of that firm and kind of the nature of, let's just say, the track record and the environment that you guys have really created out here. And that's one of the reasons I wanted to highlight is your guys' level of involvement here in the community. But even your track record and that's one of the reasons guys like me would want to engage with a group like you. Right, your track record, what have you? So, if you don't mind, to share a little more on that.

Rob: 2:22

Yeah, I think everybody is always going to tell you that they're a family-oriented business and we try to just keep it family-oriented. We have a lot of fun with our employees and it's something that we've over the last 40 years. This company actually started in Alaska and when Paul made his move to Arizona, they started up in Bullhead City. That's when I joined the company. We've been working on really small projects, really big projects. I mean we don't specialize in anything in particular and the reason is because we consider ourselves still small town. We're getting to that point where we're a little too big to be small and too small to be big.

Ryan: 2:56

Yeah, and that awkward growing phase. Yeah, so like Kind of baby great day running kind of list.

Rob: 3:08

Exactly, yeah, so a lot of the stuff that we do is, you know, we aspire for more and we're trying to grow, and that's one of the reasons we're here today, obviously, but it's just we try to keep small town values that are at our core, and all of our success really comes down to understanding that really we're just the conduit for success.

Rob: 3:20

I mean, you guys let us give you our vision for a project, or at least be a part of it, and when it comes down to it, you guys are paying the bills. So we want to see you happy and we want to see that this vision comes to fruition, and the happier you are, the more successful we are.

Ryan: 3:35

Well, I appreciate the kind words there. So let's talk a little bit about Paradigm Storage at first and how we decided to morph the Paradigm Storage as kind of the beacon to the start of the conversation for the barn caves. But in regards to this type of product, how many units have you guys or maybe even square footage have you guys been involved in designing? You know, throughout, let's just call it, because you guys are not only in Mojave County, you guys have kind of gone outside of that as well, right?

Rob: 3:58

Absolutely.

Ryan: 3:58

Yeah. So let's talk about those locations, how far you're going to and really the square footage that you guys have been the real involvement, because at the end of the day, you know, I was looking at JLL and I'm backing into this JLL had a third-party market study or like Marcus and Melichap, which is a big brokerage right. This is the institutional grade level data points that guys like me look at, or banks look at what have you. And they even noted that Lake Havasu is like the Mecca of boat and RV storage and man caves in itself. So that's one of the reasons why I continue to highlight you guys is because you've literally built almost everything here you know as far as design. So the idea is is to share with our audience. You know your guys's level of involvement but and and what you've done in track record. And then obviously we'll go into the barn caves discussion.

Rob: 4:44

Sure. So I remember sitting at burger king one day 10 years ago with paul selbert, the previous owner, and I said, man, we've got to get, we've got to hit a point of saturation in these storages, right? And he's like well, as long as people want to build them, we're going to keep designing them. And I kid you not, I actually had a client that came to us and said you know, I know you do a lot of storage, but let's see what you really like I need to see like a resume, like a portfolio In fact, I think it may have been you, buddy, it probably was us and he came back and whoever was had said like, show us. And we proceeded after 10 years ago to do another 3 million square feet of storage. It is Like it's not the only thing that we do, but, man, we love it. I mean, it's exciting.

Ryan: 5:28

Well, but that's kind of that's the point, right Is you guys have done so much of it. I mean, I don't know other architecture engineers and I'm across the country that have been able to design this level of product, because in my opinion, you're not going to find this high quality product as far as boat and RV storage and anywhere else. You'll find the car condos and higher end car level stuff, but not at this type of product. Yeah, you know, which is piggybacking off of what we're doing with the design and finish work and the methods of building for barn caves, but keep going.

Rob: 6:00

Sorry. Well, I'll just say the one thing that happened on this one. It was a little unique because anyone who's been to Lake Havasu and if you haven't, I implore you to please come visit us but there's certain ways you can do storage. And for years it was just 12 feet wide, 11 feet, 6, 35 feet, 45 feet. Our boats started getting bigger, our toys started getting more plentiful and it became somewhat of an ego deal. It was like, well, I've got one storage. Well, now I've got a double. I've got one that's this deep.

Rob: 6:27

I've got one that's that deep I've got one that's got a mezzanine. Now I just put in a bathroom. These are all the things like. We've watched this trend evolve over 20 years and it's amazing just to kind of see the way the human aspect kind of plays into these designs. For this one here specifically, what we were tasked with was coming up with the most badass storage that we could come up with, and obviously it had to have a budget. It had to be, you know, respective of limitations, but at the same time, when you drive up to Paradigm, it is by far the nicest storage facility we've ever designed next to me. I'm saying this because when you drive up to it.

Rob: 7:05

A lot of thought went into how does this appear from the street, because there is a lot of storages in here and we're guilty of it too, but a lot of them were.

Rob: 7:09

It's just the bottom line, was all that mattered it was just get there as quick as you can and as cheap as you can. But in this case, here, as you walk up, you've got the. You know the stone on the face. You've got some different orientation of panels, we get different colors. We even have a. We couldn't get a steel beam to work structurally so we end up going with this fiberglass beam that we finished off. That was just. It was. It's a small detail, but it means so much when you're looking at the design like it just adds so much to it. And then the. The beauty of it is you're surrounded across the street. You've got some competitors that can't even hold a candle to this place, and the beauty of it is your calling card is what they see from them. First, you know like, wait a minute. They just drove past like, oh, okay, we're here. It's like when you're at that airbnb house, yeah, and you like see the coolest house on the block, you're like, uh, shoot, that's not us.

Ryan: 7:56

Yeah, that's totally true, you know well that's. I really appreciate you saying that, because those are the level of details that we're implementing on everything that we're doing, you know. So, like going into barn caves, as you just sent me, you know pretty much the final floor plans, the last you know, 24 hours. Yeah, you know the level of detail that we want to go into it. It's not a big cost. It's just we really are considering people's spinning habits, like you just mentioned, like you're watching paradigm storage or this storage concept morph. And is it really from an affordability side? No, it's more from like a lifestyle, and that's where I think, with social media and all the data points that we track, it's a lifestyle, but then you also marry up, you can own these and get the write-off too. So people start looking at it from like an investment side, tax strategy and then lifestyle. So, which is huge, because now you're talking about a real investment. It's not like you're just they say, break out another thousand when you own a boat, what's?

Ryan: 8:51

a boat stand for, break out another thousand. But really, at the end of the day, even boats too, are starting to hold their value and for a while values were going up, which is not normal, and that's kind of what you're seeing here is this huge appreciation in a real estate asset class that is undeniable, that even from across the country it's working and it's appreciating and the desire is there. So when people look at it from an investment side, it's changing the landscape as well as competitors. It's starting to really become an institutional grade investment. And so for us, because we're on the private equity side, it's always about who we're going to sell to. That's where we make our money. We don't make money until the exit.

Ryan: 9:32

But it's also the devil in the details. We know that through good details and who's going to be in this space. If we're going to sell to a certain person with a certain income level, we know that they're going to look for things of this nature when the finish work. That's what we're going to be doing at the barn caves and that's why I wanted to bring you guys in, because you get, you know. But you guys have also designed all the paradigm storage and you know the backstory is. We love the big unit. How can we just take this unit and go two stories of residential above it but also make it a true single family home where you can get conventional mortgage finance? And really it's just a I always tell everybody it's a glorified town home with a bitch in our RV garage or like a man cave garage is really what it is.

Rob: 10:12

Yeah, the one thing that we did with this when we were looking at the design of it, and when I designed my own house and built it, I gave my wife a strategy and I said, there's, we're going to have a budget. This is definitive. And now I want you to pick five things that are really important to you and we're going to make sure those get in the house, but everything else we're going to value engineer around to make sure that we get what we want. Yep, we try to apply that to every design and with the barn caves it's real similar. We want to have exposed steel beams. We want to have that industrial look. We want to have all these cool things that come out and to that end, you know a lot of our clientele doesn't bring in an interior designer. You've already jumped the gun and brought in someone right away that we're going to start incorporating these colors.

Ryan: 10:52

She's not low key, she's a big deal.

Rob: 10:53

Yeah, absolutely so, like the more more heads that come into this and collaborate on it, the only better product you get.

Ryan: 11:01

And that's what I'm seeing is, and that's really where I didn't know if I was going to take it this direction during the podcast. But now that the door is open you know I'm going to bring in. So Aaron from Hot Solutions is on our next podcast. I got Nick from you know London Bridge Electric's podcast and they were talking about how their businesses have grown since they've been involved in Paradigm, because Paradigm's this product, for the sheer size and everything it's, people know about it.

Rob: 11:22

Yeah.

Ryan: 11:23

And, and their businesses have grown and they're getting other contracts in the commercial space similar to the same product, but they're calling me going.

Ryan: 11:33

Hey, I want to thank you for the opportunity because now we're growing and the point to that is is that there's such a huge support team for the barn caves.

Ryan: 11:39

That's one of the reasons why I want to highlight this is that it's almost like the more support we have, the likelihood of the investment goes up to go well, right, and that's all I care about is making sure that we deliver a product that you know we're not going to get sued on down the road. But also you know that people really want it's desirable and it is kind of catering to the financial situation in our economic situation, right. So if I could build a product that people really want, that's at the same cost as maybe some other comps down here, but it's the desirability goes through the roof with a much larger upside in demand. The likelihood of us to be looked at it goes up. You know, and that's why I keep telling everybody, we know, when we put it in the news Harold, you remember that Cause you're like oh, hold on, I think you guys shot. You guys shot your wad too early Slow down.

Ryan: 12:26

But you know, we, when, when, eric by the way, eric Eric's the one who brought it to me. I had no idea he's I don't even. I'm not from here, man, I feel like I'm starting to be from here, but he brought it to me. So when we went into the paper, he not only told me how many inquiries he got, you know from in the this day they keep calling us like when are you guys? They're calling Dennis, our contractor. Hey, when are you guys going to deliver these units? We have buyers that want these things and that's the takeaway, right? It's like I truly believe Rav in my heart that this product is going to go. It's going to become of the garage. I think that's one big component, but it's that open floor space between second and the third floor.

Ryan: 13:09

I think that right there, to marry up with this, are the two most desirable components to this product, on top of the affordability and even, possibly, the speed in which we can put these up and go vertical from foundation up. If we can marry those three things up and say four things with affordability and costs, we're in a good position. So, hence, if we can start our own manufacturing, continue to bolt on and perfect, is really the idea, because again the barn caves. I think overall is just a phenomenal product.

Rob: 13:38

Yeah.

Ryan: 13:39

And of course I'm going to be biased here.

Rob: 13:40

But you know I wouldn't expect that from you, Ryan.

Ryan: 13:42

And I just want everybody I want to preface this as this For anybody who knows me or works with me, they'll tell you that I am probably the most impatient person in the world. Is that correct? Because I want stuff. I'm like I want it now. Can you help me out? Can you do it? And I have to tell you, thank you, because you guys are delivering. I'm getting emails from you at two, three o'clock innoticed.

Rob: 14:03

I know what you're doing, and your whole team too, because your whole team is.

Ryan: 14:06

I think you told me a couple of your people were like when do I get to work on the gym in the barn caves, yeah?

Rob: 14:11

oh yeah, they're ready to go. They want in on it.

Ryan: 14:12

Yeah.

Rob: 14:14

Yeah, no, honestly, it's a real blessing to be a part of a team where everybody just seems to know their role and just gets it done. That's really from Selberg Associates, internal, but from working with Paradigm, working with the city, working with Dennis as the contractor. I know he's part of Paradigm but I mean he has such an important role here as well, having everybody that's just, you know, geared to get things done is really half the battle when it comes to what we do.

Ryan: 14:39

Yeah, and then just getting you know it's a language in itself, with the city and submissions and what they want or what have you, and that's why I continue to try to I always lean on that same you know I would say terminology or practice of you know if it's good for everybody, if the city needs it. You know we see the desirability, it matches demand, it's on the affordable side, it's kind of trendy, it's new, you know, it's kind of leaning towards people's spending habits, like where the world's. It's like that data all collectively makes me feel more comfortable to get, to keep pushing forward, yeah, and then the positive feedback that we're getting is just unbelievable.

Rob: 15:14

I think the trend too, like we are getting calls I'd say one or two a week for people that say, hey, I want to, I want to do a barn cave. Yeah, it is a trendy word right now, but it's trendy for a lot of reasons, because we have a lot of toys. Yeah, let's just face it, there's a lot of people get a lot of toys car razor right yeah, it's this way people have two boats, two jets.

Ryan: 15:33

Jets, I mean, people are having two of everything now.

Rob: 15:35

I remember sitting in a city council meeting not too long ago and this lady got up to debunk one of the projects we're working on. She's like I had to rent my neighbor's rv garage for my third rv and we all just went like, what are you talking about? Like, what does this have to do with any value of what we're talking about? But just to the point.

Ryan: 15:50

I have a third RV and I had to rent my neighbor's garage for the third RV. Yeah that's exactly what's going on.

Rob: 15:56

She was mad because the city would approve an apartment complex but not allow her to have an RV garage. That didn't buy setbacks or whatever, but it doesn't matter. But the trend is we're hearing a lot of people looking for it and these things are great in rural communities Like this isn't really where this stops. I see this, and you and I've talked about this at length. I see this going a long way.

Rob: 16:14

I mean these are just. It's a good concept. You know, if you get rural areas, you've got remote areas, you've got great views. We did a house in Branson, missouri, one time and it was a learning experience. I'm not going to lie to you, but it had panoramic views everywhere. It was phenomenal, everything that was there. This is the perfect type of project for it, because you've got your storage on the lower level, you've got your living on the next level public space and you've got your spaces on top, I mean where you're sleeping at. It just really breaks up really nicely. It keeps the house in an organic, orderly way. Yep, and you know, when you have this thing here, I can see why these things are like people are chomping at the bit to buy them. It just makes sense.

Ryan: 16:56

You know people kind of go well, where did you come up with the concept? And the quick story is, you know, we have a little barn back east in our place in Tennessee and it was built in and it was repurposed and reused several times, but I mean it's old, rustic wood. And what happened was as I went in and I said why don't I just re-engineer this building, make it more structurally sound and then build a three-bedroom, two-bath house in it? And when I did that, the support and the people around the area, just it was such a big deal. Yeah, and my friends and family and everyone's like that is the coolest thing ever. And I was like I wonder if I could just design an exterior finish and it's easy, really not hard at all pitch the roof and do a couple color changes, it's not hard, but it's trendy and it's it's those little things that create a niche and kind of capture people's attention from a pr side. So I'm like why don't we just do stuff like that? And then it just kind of continued to morph into understanding where the desirability of these barn dominiums and like the methods in which they're building and how you can pop them up anywhere and the cost to build and it was just so cool to see all of these things. I'm like man, this is the next wave for sure.

Ryan: 17:59

But to add, you know people. I've traveled the world, I've been in Dubai, I've been all throughout Europe. I've seen all these different types of architecture and homes and how people live and like. If you do look like probably the best thing is like Missouri, you go to Ozarks and you see all these high end homes against the water. You see these triple story, you know homes, or quad story homes, and then you have like another, let's just say, lake house on the water, where your car or your boat comes off the water into a garage that's on the water.

Ryan: 18:27

No, I mean, so I've just what I've really done is just kind of take the experience that I've had and kind of pull it together and then try to make it affordable but desirable, and you know and it so it. It's nothing special, it's just something that I've, I've witnessed and seen in that open floor space. I've been in a couple of those properties and it's the most stunning thing, I think is the coolest thing, because it does separate the third floor. You got the master suite and people will ever go up there so you can entertain and not have to worry about that. And then, but but how big your third floor is? As far as your master, it is a true, it's big.

Ryan: 19:00

Yeah so people don't understand like you go up and you see your master bedroom in a three bedroom, two bath house. It's not that big, but creating that when you're having a third floor helps, but creating that whole third floor is your master suite. Then you have basically 360 degree view at some level. You know, it's just really a pretty. It's just the vibe of the feel. It just feels luxurious, you know, and it feels masculine. You know that's the right way to put it. So I think.

Rob: 19:29

I think, at the end of the day, that's really what we're trying to do is build something that people really want, and the truth is, like one of the things that I think sometimes comes as a misnomer with these barn caves they're not. They're an alternative. That's like a cheaper alternative or like you're sacrificing something by doing these barn caves. We have one being built in Bullhead City right now. That's in a row of like $3 million homes and it's a barn cave going up and it's got a lot of the characteristics that the paradigm barn caves have, and you're talking about prime real estate. These things are changing the way the world looks at architecture.

Ryan: 19:58

Yeah, I agree completely. And again, how to build them, you know, and that's where I think it's always about positioning yourself in the right environment to create that edge and create that niche I really wanted to grab. Being one of the largest man cave developers in the country, I felt that is good PR, but we have to hit our square footage to be able to say that this is really what you're doing, because at the end of the day, people are like man, I would love to have a big RV garage with my toys and a loft to live in, exactly. And I'm like, yeah, but then at the same time, the city daily doesn't want any more storages. They want residential. Yeah so, but but every house out here has a RV garage anyways.

Ryan: 20:36

Yeah, so let's make it. Let's do that. It's still build a house, but it's just do a tall skinny and make it work. And it was really just kind of that simple. And then, over conversations with you and looking at budgeting and looking at what we're doing here and what our costs at times and everything, I'm like we can make this work, you know. And so it's just been kind of marinating for a while and now it's coming to fruition, yeah, and you're being real quick, and we'll sum it up with this too You're on the design side for the gym.

Rob: 21:08

Yeah.

Ryan: 21:08

So let's talk about that really quick. Tell me how exciting you are about that one.

Rob: 21:12

This gym is the gym on steroids. I don't know what else to say about this.

Ryan: 21:16

That probably makes sense, yeah it is.

Rob: 21:19

It's unreal the amount of intensity that has gone into the design process for this just from what the offering will be for a simple metal building to turn into the atmosphere that this building is going to have. Like you, I don't think anybody's prepared for this, ryan. I know no one is, I don't think that when you walk into a gym and there's a DJ spinning and there's a Porsche 911 hanging from the ceiling, or whatever car of the day you decide to put up there like all of these things that are going into it, like no

Rob: 21:48

offense to your competitors, but they don't. It doesn't make any. There's no real competitors. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, it's not even. Yeah, it's on a different market. Gym in towns is going to be paling in comparison to this one. They're just the the amount of excitement, the pool parties, the like, all of the things that go into. You know there's gyms that have a pool. This one's got like a resort. Yeah, you, there's from. All of the amenities that every gym is going to have are here.

Ryan: 22:14

Yeah.

Rob: 22:14

But at the same time, you can do MMA fighting, you can have space, you can rent out. This thing is so big that you can actually have your kids karate class, come out here, yep, and be here Tuesday nights at 6. I mean, it's here. Yeah, everything is here. This thing is going to change how the north side of Lake Havasu interacts with the gym and how all of Lake Havasu does. And, honestly, when we were talking about this, the passion that came out from not just yourself, but your partners in this deal, these guys were, I mean, they're about it. So like, this is going to draw people in from Bullhead City. This is going to draw people in from Mojave County proper.

Ryan: 22:47

Oh yeah, people people going to travel out here just to go to the gym. Exactly, I think people are going to come in from Vegas on the weekends just to go here. But anybody who travels out here, they're going there for sure. Yeah, that's a. With as many people that come here year round, I have a sticky feeling that our data, which we've been tracking, is really going to be heavy on those you know walk-ins and daily passes or weekly passes, but not only top of that. You're looking at some of the data. You know anytime fitness out here is like number one in the country or some crazy amount. You got 12,000 members at you know planet fitness. It's. There's a lot of, you know, memberships that are going around. So I don't think in any way we're going to have a problem, and I want to just make sure I preface this. You know I don't want any other company to get hurt by what we're opening up. It's just a completely different world, though it's a different concept.

Ryan: 23:31

No, I'm kind of bringing in essence. We're bringing kind of that Scottsdale like spa vibe, when we're talking about a cold plunge in a spa with, like you saw, what we're doing as far as a Dubai level design under exterior and interior, down to the pool that we're designing is a rectangle pool that is almost a identical product that's in Dubai now. So I'm actually what I'm trying to do is show people here in Haikabasu that we know you're here. There's people here that have money and want to be treated as such and want to be polished. And even if you don't, it doesn't matter. You can still have the opportunity, because I'm not like I'm charging a million dollars. This isn't a lifetime fitness model.

Ryan: 24:13

I'm still going to have a very logical income or, sorry, logical membership fee. So, at the end of the day, but you have a lot more you can go to and, like you said, and I think that, right, there is going to be huge for, you know, the youth here there's not a lot for them to do. You know, when it's hot, where are you going to go, when it's cold, where are you going to go? Right, so at the end of the day, people can come here and really, just, you know, enjoy it as all the way down to you know, we're going to have a place where you can get meal preps and have food and you can lounge out and pop up your laptop and work a little few things with the city. We'll be on our way. Yeah, we're on our way. So well, man, I'm really excited. Thank you very much for your time and this will not be our last.

Ryan: 24:56

I have a sticky feeling we're going to get a lot of feedback and questions and requests that you come back on to, to for another. If anybody needs to get a hold of Rob for any reason, like I said, the reason I wanted him to come on is for you guys, not only to show, to show you what type of product is being built, but in who's doing it. But if you need him and let's say you follow me and you want to get into the space, call Rob. His firm will help you. They obviously know what they're doing. They they're the top guys in the country in my opinion. So feel free to reach out to.