Welcome, everyone, to another exciting episode of the Team Lead Talks podcast. I'm your host out of Alexandria, Virginia, Andrew Becker. On today's episode, I have my new friend, Michael Mendoza, who is the CEO and founder of Apex. Welcome, man. How are you doing? Good, Andrew. Yeah, glad to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, dude. Obviously, we had a really good conversation in our pre-episode talk that we had. Super interesting stuff you have going on, and we'll get into all of that. But for those who don't know you yet, please give us the overview of who Michael is at an 80,000-foot level. Yeah, absolutely. And again, thanks again, Andrew, to you and team for having me today and looking forward to kind of getting into everything. But my name is Michael Mendoza. I'm a real estate developer and consultant by trade leading Apex real estate contracting. So our firm largely focuses on providing services to fellow investors and executives who are looking to boost their bottom line, whether that be through their real estate investments or through their internal operational and strategic initiatives. Overall, over the past decade, I've been able to work collectively on products exceeding $1.5 billion in value. And I'm hoping to be able to say $2.5 billion by the end of the year. Right now, working on a 1,600-acre ground-up development here in rural Colorado and looking to turn that into a $1 billion community. So a lot going on. Yeah, that's incredible, dude. Before we get into the apex part of it, how did you get your start? I know you are a marine veteran. Thank you for your service, Michael. I always love to see that. I worked with the men and women and all services at the Pentagon for quite some time. So I love seeing that on your resume. But after you got out, how did you start getting into this real estate development? Where did you get your start in the industry? Yeah, no, I appreciate that question, Andrew. And I founded Apex about two years ago, really with the intent to get into government contracting at the onset. That, of course, like all business models and whenever you launch a venture, things changed a little bit. So I ended up getting back into the roots of the real estate investment space. So over the past two years, I've been focusing on Apex and really kind of ground up development projects that needed some sort of additional boost, whether that be on kind of the pre-development side of the house, where folks are trying to kind of put all the plans together, align all of the various different parties that are needed to be able to actually go vertical, which is largely what I've been doing with my rural development project, or just essentially identifying a few value add strategies that people can implement and ultimately increase their cash flow from their properties. So prior to launching Apex, I was at a private equity firm, largely leading initiatives for investor relations and business development. And that was really a unique experience as I was able to work on various different asset classes throughout the country, largely multifamily, industrial, kind of land assemblage, you name it. And I was able to work really across the state. So I had the opportunity to kind of get a very clear understanding as to, okay, hey, here are some of the best practices that we want to implement at this property in Arizona and some of the associated requirements that we need to ensure are met. Or, hey, we have great relationships kind of in the in the southeast down in Florida. Let's see if we can kind of put a team together to be able to assemble a piece of property. So that was a very unique experience, especially because I was able to kind of get into securities side of the house and get a very clear understanding as to how to properly syndicate investment opportunities and what what you know what all that entailed. So prior to my experience there, I was at a student housing investment firm with a very large footprint around the country. And that's really where I kind of got my start into commercial real estate after pivoting from the Marine Corps. And I'll kind of get into that. But one of the things that I found very interesting about student housing investments in particular is that you're getting very granular as to what your competitors are doing in the area, what your lease rates look like that day. And ultimately, you know, those investments have investors and you have to be a good proper fiduciary and kind of keep everybody informed throughout the entire process whether that be you know whether the investment is performing above or below low par So kind of you know going going backwards a little bit during my time in the Marine Corps, I like to say I was ultimately a taxpayer watchdog. I was really kind of the, the money guy for our, our, our unit and ultimately just renting the finances and kind of tracking all of the, our material, material and items such as our trucks, weapons, you know, kind of you name it. Yeah. So I was able to kind of marry my international business degree from undergrad with that logistics focused time in the Marine Corps, as well as with my broad real estate investment and management experience to ultimately form Apex. And I really kind of see some of the products I'm working on now as being, you know, kind of those, you know, kind of a capstone events where I'm able to combine all of my experiences and implement all those best practices in a very intentional manner. Yeah. So you kind of started with like this inventory financial management in the Marine Corps. Then you started after that into a career managing different things for another company. And then Apex was your, you know, your opportunity to go out and do it on your own and start, you know, being an owner, right? And not working for someone else, but working for yourself. I'm curious, Michael, and that's a really cool story. Like you learn the process, you learn how stuff happens. And then you went out and said, hey, you know, I want to be an entrepreneur and I want to go out and do this on my own, which is really cool. Like should be really proud of that. Especially you've been you've been in for two years and you're already crossing over the billion dollar mark. But I'm curious, like, how do you like even start? Like, do you hear about a project and talk to the people involved? or are you starting your own development projects? Like where do you interject? Where does Apex interject in that entire process? And I love to figure out like, or hear you kind of tell us like, okay, there's a development in Colorado, all this land. Here's what happens and what steps ultimately to get renters in and maintain it and all the way through. Can we talk about that a little bit? I'm really curious how like a project that you have begins. Yeah, I'll kind of share a few of the projects that I've had the opportunity to work on during my time at Apex. And one thing I want to say, whenever I first launched the firm about two years ago, I realized that there was a very high demand for investors based investor focused services. Whether that was folks who were looking to acquire a property, develop it, or again, just essentially kind of identify some value as strategies. but weren't, were a little bit unclear or did not have the bandwidth to be able to actually go forward with those strategies. Right. So my very first project with Apex was actually out in California. It was, it was a, a small, a small, um, all land assemblage opportunity out in Lancaster, California, kind of out in the desert. And that was a unique experience that I kind of came across through my, through my, uh, trusted advisory network where essentially they were, they had a piece of land that they acquired about 20 years ago and were unsure what to do with it. Ultimately, what we kind of recommended there was, hey, let's kind of allow the surrounding area to keep building up before you take this to market and really get a significant return on your investment. Another project that I worked on was out in New York for a former brewing property that was looking to become a multifamily apartment. So that was a really, really unique because I'm not sure if you've kind of worked in New York or in any of those municipalities, but they have a lot of laws and regulations that you kind of have to ensure. It's a very complex real estate market, but because of those complexities, I consider that to be just a fantastic learning opportunity. And that ultimately kind of led me to the current project here in rural Colorado, which was essentially kind of just through my work very organically through my network where you know i met with a property owner who was who had a 1600 acres of of land that they needed to do something with and just kind of need a little bit of a boost to kind of push their vision forward which is where we've really been able to come in and identify some of the additional vertically integrated partners that we will need to be you know for that product yeah Michael you didn mean to interrupt but you act almost as like a consultant of like I have this land whether it like a massive 1600 acre type of thing but you kind of come in and say this is the best use case for this particular plot of land depending on or dependent on all these different factors So you're kind of recommending to the landowner or the collective landowners of like what you think that they should essentially develop it into. So that's like the first step after you kind of start the conversation with those people. spot on yeah really determining the highest and best use of the property right trying to figure out what solutions we need to put in place to make that vision a reality cool and then does that stop where like does apex stop there are you actually like seeing it all the way through to like what's the end resolve here the end result walk us through like what's the plan with this colorado one that you're working on can you kind of walk us through like start to i know you're still doing it, but like, what's the end result going to look like to you guys? Yeah. So the, the 1600 acre development is, is very unique as we have kind of started. We initially started as a consultant where we were really trying to just provide some additional firepower to the ownership group so that they could ultimately position the, the land for, for sale and disposition and exit their investment. Their, their focus was largely kind of working hand in hand with the city, getting everything properly entitled so that the parcels would be shovel ready. Gotcha. And could go vertical. Being heavily embedded into that project and kind of learning the ins and outs of it, I realized that there was a very unique development opportunity. So I will, right now I'm leading an initiative to become the new ownership group for the property and definitely develop it ourselves. Working hand in hand with a lot of the legacy ownership team who has done a really fantastic job on getting the project, the property to, you know, to the state that it's in, it's at now. Okay. And does your role also include like finding funding or the monies or the capital to do whatever, you know, the plan is for the properties? Yes, absolutely. Everything full, full scope. And so that has been a very interesting piece to navigate as fortunately I have all of the experiences necessary to be able to, you know, kind of do everything on my own. And I actually did try to take a little bit of a run at doing that on the front end. But I quickly realized that, you know, especially with two little, two rambunctious little ones. Yeah. Bandwidth limitations are a very real thing. And sometimes it's better to just kind of spread out some of those responsibilities. And that's kind of been a little bit of a learning, you know, learning experience for me as, as, you know, a former Marine Corps captain and, and, you know, and all of that. I'm just very quick to throw the team on my back and just kind of keep pushing forward. Yeah. And that's not always, that's not always the best. It's not always an appropriate or ideal, you know, way to kind of navigate things. Yeah. So this Colorado development that you're still in the midst of, right? Like what are you building? What's the development going to be? Have you gotten to that point where you said we're building commercial space with apartments on top and, you know, commercial retail on the bottom? Like what is the project? Yeah, so the project itself, 1,600 acres are situated in what's called a Qualified Opportunity Zone. So I'm not sure how familiar you are with the Opportunity Zone program. I don't know. It was enacted back in 2017 with the intent to essentially stimulate rural economies through investment. So how, you know, how do they kind of, how does the program draw investors to rural communities? They do so by offering the ability to eliminate capital gains tax after a 10-year hold period. If, you know, folks are kind of, most folks are generally familiar with the 1031 exchange program. It's very similar in that regard. However, with the opportunity zone program, you're able to fully eliminate capital gains, that capital gains liability. So for the project itself, with it being in a situated qualified opportunity zone, we were like, okay, hey, this is, you know, that's kind of the icing on the cake. We are not really relying on those tax benefits to be able to make the project successful. However, it is a very nice perk that again, kind of draws a very specific type of investor. Think family offices high net worth individuals folks who have high tax liabilities and want to kind of eliminate that in some way shape or form So that all being said you kind of had to be able to support 1 acres over a 10 period and it be a sound investment. You have to build an entire economy around that investment. You have to really kind of prop up every single angle that you can. You have to kind of dig into, prop up to ensure that your investment will be a success. One of the benefits of the project and the property itself is that it's actually surrounding an existing golf course. It's an award-winning golf course that was opened back in 2003. And so it has kind of that natural amenity to it already, which is a nice benefit over other rural improvements. And we are essentially just kind of building up the surrounding community. Ultimately, it'll be about 2,700 residential homes, which we're extremely excited about. There will be a significant amount of commercial space, hospitality, retail, really, you name it. And the intent is to kind of build a circular economic community where folks can really age in place and grow up and develop themselves as young professionals all the way through retirement. So we really kind of have a long-term vision in mind from out the gate, which I think offers a very unique opportunity for us to be able to design a community that is focused on long-term success of the community members. Yeah. And I kind of want another little component that I want to very quickly add is that we're integrating a lot of manufactured housing materials and strategies into the project with a focus on high quality, quality buildings and products out of significantly lower cost. So I'm not sure if you've been kind of tracking what's been going on throughout the United States, but a lot of natural disasters have kind of been causing a significant amount of property damage. You know, that's something that we are definitely kind of keeping our eyes on and are looking to implement as many, many climate resilient strategies into the project as possible. Just in case climate change is real. Who knows at the end of the day, but, you know, trying to take proactive steps to mitigate some of those things. Dude, that's awesome. It sounds like you're building like a new mini city that's, you know, from the ground up. Very cool. I'm curious, dude, in your current project in Colorado, is like investor window closed? Are you still looking for new investors to come on board? And if so, that's the case. It sounds like it is. How does someone like reach out to you to get involved in this or chat more to learn like what that might look like? Yeah, fundraising is very much, very much ongoing and enrolling process because of the securities regulations. We do, of course, kind of have very specific windows. And so our next 506C raise is live right now. But at any point throughout the life of the project, if you or anybody you know is looking to invest $500,000 or more, we will figure out a way to get you integrated. Again, the project itself is going to be a pretty significant lift, but we've been able to put together a top-notch expert team to navigate the vertical process. So we're very excited about it and very much open to investors who are looking to deploy some capital. Cool. Michael, how does somebody reach out to you? Do you have a website? How can they get in touch with you if they want to learn more about the project? Yeah. Please feel free to go to www.mikecolorado.com and that will route you over to Apex or find me on LinkedIn under Michael Mendoza. Very cool. Well, Michael, thank you so much for being here today. Super interesting story. I'm curious, like, has construction started on this project? And if not, when do you think it's going to start just in case someone's interested? And then how this is a very significant project. So I know it's going to take quite some time to fully build out, but what's your timeline looking like? Yeah, so this year we are largely focusing on finishing out all the infrastructure and utilities to be able to fully activate the project. So that's kind of our largest focus right now. And then next year we'll be going vertical and looking to go vertical on about 300 to 500 residential homes. Wow. Very cool, dude. Well, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate you being here with us today, Michael. Yeah. Thanks, Andrew. I appreciate it. And yeah, look forward to reconnecting next time. Yeah, totally. Later, man. All right. Take care. Thanks.
