Mixed Use "Secret Recipe"

Now that you bought into the tag line to start reading this, I have to be honest and tell you that there really is no “secret recipe” for mixed use. However, I believe the main ingredient is perseverance. Sometimes it includes banging your head against the wall before, during and after you developed a mixed use project. Maybe I exaggerate it, but it does take tremendous flexibility, creativity, teamwork, the ability to work with and filter through many competing interests along with the ability to deal with constant change and give and take. However, the end result is so rewarding that most of us entrepreneurial development minds are addicted once we start; and we cannot even think about how life was back when we were doing subdivisions and other single-use developments.

I think if I was to try to pinpoint the recipe for successful projects, to me, they are the projects that have strong leadership that can put aside ego and personal desires for a specific project, and get inside the head of the true users of the project, both immediately and in the future. Our developments represent much more than just a building; these buyers and renters are making a social and psychological decision and choosing a lifestyle. Most of the people I get to know in our developments are not caught up in the “rat race,” but rather are very conscious of what they want to accomplish in life and where they want to spend their time. They know how they want to live their life and have less attachment to the actual “home” or “office” that they reside in. Therefore, to create a successful mixed use project, I cannot stress enough how the creator of the project needs to really take the time to strip themselves of all their bias, and listen to those people who will be using, consuming, enjoying, living, working, playing in their projects. If they just do that, the projects they develop will be successful!