In this episode, guest host Claire Richardson leads an engaging and informative conversation with Howard Goldenfarb, founder of RAM Companies. Mr. Goldenfarb shares his remarkable career trajectory—from his early aspirations in law to becoming a prominent real estate developer beginning in Portland, Maine, in the 1970s. He offers a detailed account of the challenges and successes surrounding the redevelopment of Exchange Street, a cornerstone project in the revitalization of the Old Port. The discussion expands to his international ventures, including the development of outlet centers across Europe, and culminates with an in-depth look at the ambitious Portland Music Hall project—a 3,300-seat venue set to elevate the city’s cultural and economic landscape. Throughout the conversation, Mr. Goldenfarb emphasizes the enduring importance of integrity, resilience, and adaptability—principles that have defined his distinguished career.
Episode 65: Featuring Howard Goldenfarb, founder and president of the RAM Companies
In this episode, guest host Claire Richardson leads an engaging and informative conversation with Howard Goldenfarb, founder of RAM Companies. Mr. Goldenfarb shares his remarkable career trajectory—from his early aspirations in law to becoming a prominent real estate developer beginning in Portland, Maine, in the 1970s.
He offers a detailed account of the challenges and successes surrounding the redevelopment of Exchange Street, a cornerstone project in the revitalization of the Old Port. The discussion expands to his international ventures, including the development of outlet centers across Europe, and culminates with an in-depth look at the ambitious Portland Music Hall project—a 3,300-seat venue set to elevate the city’s cultural and economic landscape.
Throughout the conversation, Mr. Goldenfarb emphasizes the enduring importance of integrity, resilience, and adaptability—principles that have defined his distinguished career.
SPEAKERS
Howard Goldenfarb, Claire Richardson
Claire Richardson 00:00
Claire, I'd like to welcome our listeners to the bolus beat Podcast. I'm Claire Richardson, guest hosting for Greg bolus. The bolus company is northern New England's largest commercial real estate services firm with offices in Portland, Maine as well as Manchester and Portsmouth New Hampshire. We've been selling and leasing real estate in Maine and New Hampshire since 1975 This podcast is designed to provide insight into Maine's leaders, movers and shakers. And speaking of movers and shakers, I'd like to welcome Howard Goldenfarb to the bowl of speed. Howard is the founder and president of the ram companies located here in Scarborough. Maine. The Ram companies got its start in the early 1970s when Howard began redeveloping properties in the Old Port exchange. From there, the ram companies has gone on to develop and manage real estate on three continents for over five decades.
Howard Goldenfarb 00:51
Hi, Howard, how are you I'm doing well. How are you nice to finally get together this way.
Claire Richardson 00:55
I know I'm really excited to have you here. It took a little while because you don't like to do podcasts, or you've never done a podcast,
Howard Goldenfarb 01:01
I've never done a podcast. In fact, really have I listened to and I listened to my wife and I were driving back from Naples to Miami a couple of weeks ago, and she loves podcasts. It was really the first time listen listen to a podcast. What kind of podcast was it? It was, well, it was one that she chose, and I, I'm trying to remember who it was. It was fascinating. Yeah, I guess I heard someplace there's 4 million podcasts available for people.
Claire Richardson 01:28
It's it's becoming pretty big. I've actually just started getting into them. So now, when I go for walks or runs and I have a variety, some are just funny and easy to listen to,
Howard Goldenfarb 01:39
as I remember now, it was Amy Poehler did a podcast somebody, yeah, yes. I was listening to that one, yeah, just trying to break up the drive, because it's a boring drive going across the state of Florida, and it was fun to listen to it. Yeah. The problem was that Barbara hadn't figured out how to control the speed. And it was on, you know, almost double talk, and it gets you nervous, yes? So finally we figured out how to control the speed, and now her life is much better because she still listens to
Claire Richardson 02:10
him. Yeah, my husband listens to him very fast, and I can't keep up.
Howard Goldenfarb 02:14
You can control the speed, yeah, oh, I know, but it's not a normal pace of talk, no, so I'm not sure how people like it, because to me, it tends to make you kind of hyper. Yeah, as you get in the same rhythm as they're talking, it's not a normal rhythm,
Claire Richardson 02:30
I agree. Well, thank you for joining us today, for agreeing to do this. So there's a lot to discuss today, because you started developing around 1970s here in Portland and throughout the Greater Portland area. You went on to do international development, and then continued nationally in parts of Florida, Massachusetts and even more here in Maine. But before we get to all of that, I'd like to hear a little bit about your upbringing. Where are you from? Originally,
Howard Goldenfarb 03:09
I was born in Boston, grew up in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and when I was about 12, my parents moved to Milton, which is suburb, an immediate suburb of Boston, and grew up there, went to public school there, and then went to Northeastern on the work study program, which was actually a major made a major change in my life. How so because of the work study, I had planned on becoming an attorney until I got a co op job. They try to put you in a job while you're in school. I was studying political science, which at that time was pre legal. I'm not sure why they called it pre legal, but that was the pre legal program, and they put me at a law firm as an office boy. And it took me three days working at the law firm as an office boy to decide I never wanted to be a lawyer. And part of it was because it was a, it was a was the third largest law firm in Boston. Had 23 lawyers. Today, law firms in Boston, including this one, this one has the firm I worked with has, I think, over 1200 lawyers spread around the different places, including Europe. But in the Boston office, they have over 400 people. But it was a very stuffy Boston Yankee law firm, and you had to become a senior partner to get an air conditioner in your window. This was before there were a lot of high rises in Boston, and I said, this just isn't for me. But during that I met one of the lawyers who became a boss, my mentor, and ultimately, business partner. So that made a big difference in my life. Yeah, who was that? Bob monks, who unfortunately, recently passed away. He saw,
Claire Richardson 04:49
I'm sorry, two or three weeks ago. Yeah, you mentioned we'd spoken about that before, and he's what brought you to Portland, right? You were working with him on his. His political campaign.
Howard Goldenfarb 05:01
Well, I was working with him. I started as an office boy at the law firm he was with, and then when he left the firm, which was the day after he was made a partner, announced that he was leaving. Oh, wow. And I went to work with him in his new business, which was a venture capital company doing everything from Gopher work to things that were a little bit more meaningful than that. And he decided in 1969 1970 after he sold off the major businesses that he had bought, to run for US Senate from the state of Maine, which is where his mother had family. And he moved up to Maine, and I went with him 1970 to start organizing and helping with the political campaign, which was 1972 that's how I got to Maine. Wow. Have never left,
Claire Richardson 05:53
yeah. Well, we were happy to have we're happy to have you happy you landed here.
Howard Goldenfarb 05:57
Maine was a different place then than it is today, thankfully,
Claire Richardson 06:00
yes, and I want to hear about that, because so he 1972 he started his campaign that you helped him
Howard Goldenfarb 06:07
with. No, he started the campaign really 1970 the election was in 1972
Claire Richardson 06:12
and he did not win the election. No, the plan
Howard Goldenfarb 06:14
when we moved up got married in 1970 and the plan when we moved up to Maine in 1971 full time 1972 after the election. But the plan was, we were going to move to Maine, planning on winning and then moving to Washington. So Maine was not in the long term plan. But because he ran and lost, he made the decision to stay in Maine. He had a home in Cape Elizabeth, and had roots in Maine through his mother and and Millie. Millie's family had properties in Maine, and he made the decision to stay there, and offered a position with me if I wanted to stay or I could go back to Massachusetts. And I so thoroughly enjoyed working with him and the experience with him, I made the decision to stay at that time not something that my wife was supporting,
Claire Richardson 07:06
really. She was looking forward to DC. Maine. I'm sorry she was looking forward to DC.
Howard Goldenfarb 07:11
Both Barbara and I were from big cities and Maine in 1972 73 was a lot different than it is today, but we made the decision to stay, and it turned out to be a very, very important and good one. Yeah,
Claire Richardson 07:25
so at that point is when I believe you started, you kind of identified exchange Street.
Howard Goldenfarb 07:33
Well, what happened was, I had thought I wanted to be a lawyer. I really enjoyed design. I thought maybe architecture would be something that would more suit me, but I was never particularly good at math, and being an architect involves a lot of mathematics, a lot of lot of design that involves that. But I always had an interest in design, architectural design. Bob's family bought a property on exchange Street, the corner of exchange and federal Street, 103 exchange, to move the offices into after he ran and lost beautiful building that's still there. Bob's sister Ellen had a retail store, very fine clothing store on the first floor. Bob's offices were on the second floor, which is where I was, and the third floor, million monks. Bob's wife ran the rim Island Dance Center, which was a modern dance studios, incredible operation. And I began to look around and at a given point, knowing that Bob encouraged people to do more, I approached him and said, I really liked working with him, rather than for him. I enjoyed working for him, but I saw an opportunity to do something and work with him, and he encouraged me to do that. And he said, Find something you want to do, and if it meets with something that I think makes sense, will become partners. So I looked at a variety of businesses, and one of which was a beer and wine distributor, distributorship, and lot of other things, and finally settled on the fact that I enjoyed architecture, and I looked around at the buildings on exchange Street, which was not the Old Port exchange at that time, there were no brick sidewalks, there were no trees. It was basically pretty rundown area that had been very strong up until the First World War, and after the First World War started to go down, and I guess you could call parts of it seedy at that time. And I said, Let's buy a building. So Bob put up the money, and I put in the time. And the deal was that I became a 1% partner, and when he got back his money, we became 5050, partners. So that was how we started on exchange Street. 80. Exchange Street was the first building that's identified now as the building with the mural on it where the little park is in the corner middle and yes, no federal and middle and exchange. So that was the first 119,
Claire Richardson 09:54
73 Wow. And then you just kept going. So that was a success. So did you.
Howard Goldenfarb 10:00
It was, how did that slow success? Yeah, we had 6% occupancy for the first nine months and and thankfully, I had a partner who believed in what we were doing and believed in what I was doing, and he stuck with it, with me and with it, and we ultimately reached the level of occupancy in the building. We were doing something different. There had been some work on exchange Street. We got a lot of credit for creating that area, but it really started with Henry Willett and Frank Akers, who bought some buildings on lower exchange street, and they didn't do much to the building, other than kind of paint the exterior fronts and lease the first floors to artist studios and, you know, similar kinds of of low rent, giving people an opportunity to move into first floor space, but at low rent. And that was really the beginning of what became the Old Port exchange. We were the first people to really do full gut rehabs. The first building we bought, we completed gutted, completely gutted the interior. Put in new windows, new electric, new plumbing, elevator, and made them very, very attractive offices. We exposed the brick, which people weren't doing. The brick that was in the interior of these buildings was structural. They built the interior walls out of bricks. It wasn't there to make people have, you know, really attractive offices. So we decided to take the, you know, the stucco off the plaster or the sheetrock, what was ever on them, and expose the brick. So something new. Most of the people in Portland, if they were in one Monument Square, which was the newest building at the time, were used to modern offices. So it took a little while before people would say that this is a place they wanted to go. So our first tenant was the only tenant for about nine months, and the first tenant is still a very good friend. He's long retired from the business he was in, but still a very good friend who was the first tenant, Jim frylinger, Jim and Katie frylinger. And Jim was an independent insurance agent, and they moved from believe Congress Street down to exchange Street, again, no trees, no brick sidewalks, no attractive you know, anything on the street other than this building, which was kind of different.
Claire Richardson 12:15
So because what I'm envisioning hearing this is just kind of a dreary, nothing really happening area. And so you just went in with like an, if you build it, they will come mentality. What were you? What was your thought
Howard Goldenfarb 12:30
process? I'll tell you how dreary. I had a good job with Bob, and, you know, well paying job as an employee, and made the decision to do this. And I took my wife, Barbara, to show her exchange Street and the building that we bought. And you can use some of this if you want, or you don't have to, but we drove down exchange Street at that time, and there was a person who liked wine urinating in the front entranceway to the building. And Barbara looked at me, you said you did what it literally started to cry. This is our future, truly, absolutely true story, no exaggeration. So the basically, we took a chance. I mean, I think ignorance turned out to be bliss. We just didn't know. But yeah, he believed in what I was doing, and I didn't know any better than that. And it turned out to be a good decision. That building began to fill up. Our second tenant in that building was Jim Longley, who went on to become the governor of Maine. And he believed in what we were doing. And then we bought another building on exchange Street, and then another and then another and another, and ultimately wound up with 22 buildings in the area. Wow, over a period of years, over a period of about 10 years,
Claire Richardson 13:49
it seemed to get easier and easier as it
Howard Goldenfarb 13:51
nothing becomes easier in the business, but it you learn, I knew very little about construction. You learn as you went along. And again, we're dealing with a small building. Was only about 14,000 square feet in the building, so it was quite small. So the mistakes would be small, but there were mistakes. But fortunately, if you have good people around you and a good contractor, you can deal with those. Try to reduce them to as few as possible.
Claire Richardson 14:19
That's great. Who were the other if there were other big players in that area doing developments at the time, if that you recall the there
Howard Goldenfarb 14:29
really weren't, as I said, Frank acres. Frank acres and Henry Ouellette bought properties originally, mostly in lower exchange rate, not in Upper exchange rate, which is where we started. But there really weren't at the time, I don't think anybody else was doing what we were doing at that time. This was 7374 75 one of the and again, that was about the time the city started to make some improvements in the area, when they took up the old sidewalks and. Put in brick sidewalks and put in trees. And one of the things that I believe really began to put the area, exchange Street area in people's minds were a restaurant opened up at 85 exchange Street, which was one of the buildings we bought. I think it was the third building we bought. And the second building we bought was 95 exchange Street, which was next to 103 which is the building Bob and his family had purchased that we moved into, and a restaurant from New Hampshire wanted to move into the first floor. And the structure that building was such that there was no way, I believe, that you could control the odors coming from a restaurant. So I figured we could have a very successful restaurant on the first floor, but then the odors would drive lawyers or insurance companies or whomever might move upstairs, so we turned them down. Then we bought 85 exchange Street, which is the last building on the upper exchange Street, closest to Middle Street. And that building was literally a bomb shelter. It was, it was. It was a civil defense shelter from the Second World War, and the floors and the walls were about 18 inches thick in the building, all the way running through, which meant that there was a possibility of controlling the odors. So we let the restaurant come in. It was called f parkarides, and F parkarides was the first place that opened a there was a steakhouse, beautiful Steakhouse, Open for lunch and dinner. Was the first place in the area that people after work would go to have a drink and something light to eat at the bar and hang out. Wow. Prior to that, people basically went home five o'clock or whatever time the office is closed. They went home. This was a place that people who worked up the street at the Press Herald, which was where the now press hotel is, and people who were working in the area would go to, if Parker readies. It was kind of a, you know, there's a vibe to it. It was a scene. People would go down there. And it began to attract people to the area because of that, not uncommon, that a place for entertainment attracts people to an area and then other things develop around it. Yeah, and that, to me, that was one of the things that really began to make exchange street popular.
Claire Richardson 17:15
So how long were you working on the exchange street properties. Did you own the exchange street portfolio before you decided to? You ultimately sold them.
Howard Goldenfarb 17:26
We sold those in 1984 a package of the properties, some I kept in 1982 Bob went to work in the Reagan administration as a kind of $1 a year, person involved in the Labor Department, which is something that he was interested in. And I took over the business. His nephew, John Higgins and I had been partners for a period of time, and we each went separate ways. And I took over the the the development business, and we sold the package in 1984 because it looked like a good opportunity to to sell the properties. And earlier than that, we started to get involved in other things. We did our first residential development project in foresight, foresight Falmouth in 1979 opened it in 1979 and in the early 80s, when we were still partners, I started the development of the first main out, first outlet development in Maine and Kittery. But after 82 when I took over the development business, then things began to expand a little bit
Claire Richardson 18:38
differently. Yeah, so I'm curious, do you recall what you sold the exchange Street? No, buildings
Howard Goldenfarb 18:44
were truly don't you, don't I know what I paid for the first building per square foot. What was it? $13 Oh, my gosh.
Claire Richardson 18:53
I think that was the rent a space for $13 a square foot. Now,
Howard Goldenfarb 18:56
no, well, rents at that time were, I think our first rents were about $6 gross, a modified gross, yeah, but $13 a square foot, I remember, no, I truly can't remember what we sold the whole package for. Oh, man. But we kept other we kept some properties, and then ultimately sold those as time went on, different different situations. Okay?
Claire Richardson 19:18
And I have to ask, did you end up figuring out which building the bolus company rented? Yeah, 85 exchange Street. It was
Howard Goldenfarb 19:27
85 the building that was the bomb shelter. Yeah, Isaiah bomb shelter in the basement of the building, which was when f parkerides opened. They put the kitchen in the basement. It was a beautifully designed with gorgeous Italian marble and Italian tiles in the basement. Wow, it's beautiful. But part of the basement was a was a bomb shelter, Civil Defense shelter. They had a on the exterior the building was a civil defense sign that if in the event of war, that's where the places you went to. And that building in one of the buildings we bought on Congress. Street the Masonic building. Half of it was the Grand Lodge of the Masons, and the front half was a building that the Masons owned that was an office building that also was the same kind of structure, very, very thick walls and very, very thick floors. And in the basement of that building there were food supplies and water supplies that went back to the Second World War. I'm sure none of them any good. We moved them out as quickly. Just canister and canister of food and wow, and water and whatever, and both
Claire Richardson 20:29
amazing. That's a lot of lot of history with all those. But
Howard Goldenfarb 20:33
that was the building. I think it was 8085 was the entrance to the building. 87 was a store, became a barbershop. And next to that, 89 I think, is where Joe and Ed started, bowlers and Company.
Claire Richardson 20:48
Do you think, looking back at all of that work you did, do you think it would have been possible to do it with today's politics in place,
Howard Goldenfarb 21:00
not so much the politics, but the system. It's not doing something today is not, no matter what you do, is not the same as some of those buildings go back 50 years. I mean, we started 52 years ago. The speed with which information travels makes a big difference, because if somebody likes something or doesn't like something, it becomes immediately known. So if you're doing something that someone may be opposed to, all of a sudden it can take root, and you may have a big, big outpouring of dissent, which didn't exist then, right? And I don't know if that would have made a difference in doing the buildings on exchange street someone might have but the difference then was the system for approvals and permitting was much different. We did approximately 22 buildings in the Old Port, exchange and surrounding area, Monument Square, and never go to a planning board. We simply our contractor took the plans up to the building department, had them stamped and we started work. Wow, not a single planning, single planning review. So the answer to that is yes, it's much different.
Claire Richardson 22:10
No historic board. Well, the review,
Howard Goldenfarb 22:13
when we started, there was a program with the federal government for for restoration of properties, and restoration is really something only the government can afford. Do. We were doing rehabilitation, but it was called restoration because there were investment tax credits, and most of what we were doing in the first few years, there was very little control on it. After 76 there was a tax act that the Department of Interior got more involved in, but not so much. The local landmarks was an important group at that time, and we dealt a lot with the Earl Shuttleworth. It was, I think, from the main Historic Preservation Office, but we had fewer controls on it than you might have today. I'm sure there are fewer controls then that we might have today. Yeah, but it's being done. I mean, people are still doing it. So obviously is doable, but I think it's much more complex than it was at that time.
Claire Richardson 23:12
So moving on from Exchange street, you then went on to develop projects such as the main outlets in Kittery, which I believe was the first of 20 outlets to open in the entire country.
Howard Goldenfarb 23:26
Yeah, it was the first when we started construction, or started the process in 1981 opened in October of 1983 it was the 20th purpose built outlet center. What I mean by purpose built outlet center. It was specifically built to be an outlet center. There was the whole kind of industry as an industry started in Pennsylvania, I think, with Vanity Fair, which made jeans, Lee Jeans, and not sure what the other brand was, but in their factory, they saw that I grew up, as I said, in in Boston, and as a kid, used to go to Brockton, which was where a lot of shoe manufacturers were. And you could go to the shoe factories in Brockton and buy shoes cheaper than you would buy pay for what you would pay for shoes in the store, they were either slightly damaged or discontinued styles. So Vanity Fair realized that people were coming to their company store, which existed forever. When everybody had a factory, they might have a little store that they sell off goods or damaged goods or whatever. They opened up, they said, Geez, if people are coming to see us and buy our products, maybe other people want to be there. So they in their factory, would open up two or three or four or five stores that other people would rent and use sell their products. But purpose built meant you started from scratch and you built something that was simply going to be an outlet center. Yeah. So when we opened Kittery in 1983 it was the 20th outlet center of the country.
Claire Richardson 24:56
So you just caught wind of companies doing this and decided how. Did, like,
Howard Goldenfarb 25:00
no, like, a lot of a lot of projects that we did came to us, the first condominium development we built, which was in Falmouth forside common. It's right on the Penobscot or Presumpscot. Excuse, the, I think it's the presumps get River. Yeah, that separates Falmouth from Portland. The woman who owned the land had been in her family since the 1700s they had a deed from the King of England, went all the way back. Wow, called me and somehow read about what we were doing. I can only imagine. There's no other way she would have found out, or somebody told her and said she had a piece of land and she'd like to see it developed. She had a house on the piece of land, and that was the start of Forsyth common that opened in 1979 so a lot of the projects were brought to us. Like to take credit for thinking of them. Factory outlets were brought to us by a very good friend who owned a number of McDonald's in the state of Maine, and he wanted to open up one in Kittery, because the turnpike goes right by that location, and there's great visibility from the Turnpike, and there's an exit off there, even before all the outlets developed. And he said this would be a great place for outlet center. And in wells Maine, there was a tiny little outlet center on route one where some local manufacturers had stores. That was about all I knew about outlet centers, but he really gave me the idea of doing this location. So I'd like to take credit for it, but I can't. The only thing we take credit for is following up on the idea so he could open his McDonald's. Is McDonald's, which he did, yeah, very successfully on our site, but we took the risk and opening up the first phase was about 75,000 square feet. Then we expanded
Claire Richardson 26:48
it two or three times. You started in 81 and
Howard Goldenfarb 26:51
81 opened the first phase up in 1983 October, 1983 the city and the state had started to change. I mean, became more there's more activity in the state, and it was a difficult place in the 70s for if the husband worked and the wife stayed at home and you moved from elsewhere to the Greater Portland area in the wintertime, there wasn't that much ado. If you skied, if you skated, if you you know, snow, snow plowed, whatever you may do if you had a whatever, it was a difficult place to be, I think, for a woman who stayed home and yeah, and at least that's what I'm told by women who here, especially Barbara, yeah. But it began to change. One of the things I think that changed, it was in 1975 Women's Wear Daily, which was the Bible for the women's clothing business, came out with a story that said, LL Bean was chic 1975 and 1975 I think ll beans was doing about $75 million a year in business, which was about, you know, 1/20 of what they do now, yeah, I'm sure. But Women's Wear Daily said LL Bean was chic. It was not just for bean boots and going to hunting. And a lot of people started because the only store, the only way you could buy LL Bean clothing was through the store in Freeport or the catalog. There was no internet at the time, and there were no LL Bean outlets or stores anyplace else in the country. So Freeport was Mecca to people who liked LL Bean, which had a national following, national following, and that began to put Maine on the map. Now, that's my view. I'm not sure other people would agree with me, but I believe that was really a big difference. And so Maine, by the 80s, when we started, the Maine outlet was already becoming much more vibrant, much Southern Maine especially, became much more vibrant, much more what I would say is an exciting place to be
Claire Richardson 28:52
because you and then you also developed to be one of the first of its kind, River Place in South Portland as more of a lifestyle community.
Howard Goldenfarb 29:00
Yeah, we started. I liked doing the outlets again, because it gave the capacity to help me with some of the design ideas I had. As I said, architecture was something I always thought I might do, and that was true in when we did four side common, which was about 30 acres, 62 homes on the river. River Place. We started 19 we started in 2002 so it was about 20 years later we did four side we did Wildwood on the Cape, which was the second condominium development, which was on proputa Golf Club. So the first one was in a river, the second one was on a golf course. And it was just, it was enjoyable. I mean, like any development project that had its moments, but it was an enjoyable project. It was well received. It was. So it opened successfully. And then we had the early 80s stagflation, when home mortgages were about 17% the prime rate was 21% inflation was about 15% and we went through a six month period of time when no one showed up. No one showed up at all. Oh my gosh. And so you had to get through that, yeah, and we did get through that and became a successful project.
Claire Richardson 30:27
How did you get through that? Actually, one of the questions I wanted to ask you was about your history with recessions and economic ups and downs, and because there's a lot of young professionals out there that have yet to experience that life cycle. So I'd be curious to hear that
Howard Goldenfarb 30:49
I was talking to my son the other day about the times we're now, which are each one is a little bit different. We're not in a recession, but we're certainly in a confusing period of time, economically, socially, etc. When, when we started 1973 1974 the country, the stock market was in a deep recession. Think the market lost 50% of its value. I didn't know any better. I didn't know any stocks, so I didn't really understand what was going on. So the ignorance was bliss. But I counted, I think, seven recessions that I've been through since I started in 1973 each one was different, and each one I had the feeling, how are we going to get out of this? Yeah, what is going to make the country come out of people not wanting to spend money, people losing jobs? How do you turn the corner and not being an economist, not truly knowing what economists do do. I really didn't understand it. What I realized is we do come out of them for different reasons, and the country seems to come out of them stronger than the time before. Now, unfortunately, people lose their jobs. Some people never recover from that, financially or otherwise. But overall, if you're taking a big micro picture, macro picture, the country comes out stronger. But each time, including today, when we're confused by what prices will be, what's going to happen with the economy, inflation, the country seems to rally and come out and come out stronger again. There are, unfortunately, people and companies that are hurt each time that never survive. But if you can hang on and long have long enough fingernails, you hopefully can get to the other side. And it seems to happen that you do get to the country does get to the other side?
Claire Richardson 32:41
Yeah, is there any advice you give to younger developers, and in terms of just making it through when you're at that lowest low and you don't think you're going to make it out, in retrospect, what would you tell yourself? You
Howard Goldenfarb 32:54
and I talked a little bit about that, and I think I jokingly said, What do I suggest to young developers? I said, become a dentist. I was trying to think of what's really a more intelligent answer than that. Patience is one of them. Because nothing happens within the time frame you want it to happen, or think it's going to happen, and putting a good team around you, especially if you're going to do development, to me, the real development is ground up development. Buying properties is one way of being in the real estate industry. As being a broker is as being a ground up developer. If you're going to be a ground up developer, you really need patience. Projects we've been involved in that a ground up can be anywhere from three years to six years from conception to the time it becomes real. How you grow long fingernails is another story to hold on, and part of it is, is always trying to look to make sure you had the capacity to hold on, whether that's through a partnership or your own resources, or you have good relationships with the banks. I don't have a simple answer to how do you hold on? And one way is to constantly look and make sure you're not overcommitting.
Claire Richardson 34:11
Yeah. So the outlets you developed overseas? So was it Belgium, England and Israel? Israel? Yeah, you developed outlet centers there as well. We
Howard Goldenfarb 34:23
have a very good friend, and he went from becoming a good friend, a tenant and business partner, mostly a friend is the way I look about him. Look at him. Danielle, Zilka. And Danielle is is a long history in Europe, without going through all of the steps. It's fascinating history. He'd be a good person to get onto the podcast. But a lot of Danielle's friends who lives in Danielle lives in the Greater Portland area, would come over from Europe in the summer and would go to Freeport, go to Kittery, to go shopping, because there was some outlets were not available, and loved American. Goods that you couldn't get in Europe. And Danielle said to me, because Danielle had an office within our office, and said, why don't, why don't we do this in Europe? And Europe, to me, it was a place on the map and place I'd visited and but to do business in Europe, whether different languages and different customs, different laws. I said, great, but let's talk about how we do it. And Danielle had a collection, and has a collection of friends everywhere, wherever we went, people would he would know and would love seeing him. And he had a good friend in London, whose family were part owners of Tesco supermarket chain, which was the biggest supermarket chain in in the UK. And his friend became our partner. He had just left Tesco. He was the property manager for Tesco. He would find the sites. And we traveled all over England and Wales. We found a site in Doncaster, which was about an hour and a half, two hours out of London, and built what was the second factory outlet center in the UK, and opened that in 9596 took us about a year and a half, but we had wherever we dealt. When in England, in Israel, in Belgium, we needed somebody local who not only spoke the language and and English, of course, but understood the customs and the laws and in the marketplace. So while we were the kind of the leader of the pack. We really required local involvement in order to be able to do it and to try to do it successfully.
Claire Richardson 36:51
So how was that process? If you were to well,
Howard Goldenfarb 36:53
at the very beginning, I would tell my friends, I'd say, What are you doing this week? And I said, I'm going to London. Yeah, we had our primary office was in London. We had our legal office, I think in Monaco, because our partner, this fellow, who was with Tesco, had an office, and that was, I think our legal location was in Monaco, and but our office, operating office, was in London. And I'm going over to London for the weekend, or I have to go to Paris on business. And it became very sexy at the very beginning. Oh, you go to Europe for business, and after a while it becomes a long plane fight. It's just this longer plane flight than going to New York or going to Miami, but it was fun most of the time, and the fact that it turned out successfully made it more enjoyable. But we sold the businesses in each one is a little bit different, but basically we closed the office in London and we had a meeting in 2001 in London with our partner to talk about the business and doing other things at that point after we'd sold, you know, the centers. And that was 911 and Barbara and my partner, Danielle, and I were stuck in London. Know, the worst places to be stuck in London, England, which is an incredibly great place. It's one of my favorite, probably my favorite city outside of this country. But when you can't get home and there's no planes, there's no boats, you can't swim, you can't drive, you can't walk, and we were stuck there for about six days, made the decision that I'm never going to develop any place I can't walk home from or drive home from, yeah, so that ended at the thought of doing anything further there, but, and a lot of it was in order to really develop the business there, I had to move there. I'm the one who understood the outlet business. Yeah. Danielle understood a lot of the aspects of it and the financial side of it, but I had to be there, and I wasn't prepared. Although there was a time we took our son to over with us to one of the trips with the thought that maybe we would put him into school as an American school in London, and it just never developed it. It was hard to make that kind of move.
Claire Richardson 39:17
How old were so Todd and Abby are your two children? How old were they at the time
Howard Goldenfarb 39:21
the 90s? Abby was born in 75 so she was in college, and Todd had just started college. So they were old enough to be independent. But the thought of uprooting him from school in this country to go to England, he wasn't I'm trying to think of the timing, yeah, we would have had to uproot him to move to England. But so the the business was successful. It was you look back and you forget the more difficult parts, but it was a lot of fun, yeah, and, but there was a lot of travel, and I'm not a great flyer, and some of the flights. London and bad weather were kind of interesting, but you got through
Claire Richardson 40:03
it between Monaco in London. Did you ever go to a Formula One race?
Howard Goldenfarb 40:07
No. In fact, I don't think I was ever in a Monaco office. The only time I've ever been in Monaco is we've been there to vacation, on trips, and Formula One Todd is a huge Formula One fan. He's been now to Miami. We both been. He's been to the prior to Miami, Austin, Texas, which we're doing business, yeah, the only formula one track in the country, yeah. But I've never been, I've never been to any formula one outside
Claire Richardson 40:35
we did, I did Silverstone, which is Silverstone, a lot of fun, and Montreal as well. Really, yeah, I my husband got really into it, so now I use it as an excuse just to travel and
Howard Goldenfarb 40:47
go see this weekend. I'm not a golfer, but we went to see Tiger Woods play Doral, and we had seats at the 18th hole. And basically what it is, is you sit there and wait 15 minutes for the next round? Yeah, when you watch it on television, it's, you know, cutting this hole, that hole, this guy putt that. It's amazingly fast. When you're watching it there, it's boring as hell, especially without a golfer. But everybody was waiting to see Tiger Woods because he was playing. And as soon as Tiger Woods played, 50% of the stand left because they weren't there for golf. They were there to see Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods was in his prime, and I've been to a couple of formula ones in Miami, and both times it was about 95 degrees. They hold it in the beginning of May, yes, very hot days. And it's fascinating to be in the area, to walk around hundreds of 1000s of people, and there's all kinds of things going on, concerts and whatever. But when the race starts and you're sitting, unless you're sitting in the in the paddock or wherever the big price tickets are sitting, you know, 10,000 or something, we're in the grandstand, and you can't see the cars, I mean, so you have to watch this giant screen. So again, like a golf tournament, it's better watching it on television. But there's an excitement in physically being there, yeah, and the seat
Claire Richardson 42:11
location is very strategic with Formula One be across from, like the pit cruise. Yeah, you know that action is really good.
Howard Goldenfarb 42:17
But if you're in, if you're in 90 degree weather and it's humid, yeah, and the sun is beating down. But our son and daughter now, our granddaughter, he was only two, she's beginning to get into it. But they were great Lewis Hamilton fans. And, okay, yeah. And for some reason, when Lewis Hamilton just was one race, the last race of the season that Verstappen won. And now it's all for staff,
Claire Richardson 42:41
and back to real estate. You, so you left the international development behind, come back here,
Howard Goldenfarb 42:52
and that's when River Place. That's
Claire Richardson 42:55
when you did river
Howard Goldenfarb 42:56
that's what we said, a river place. 2002 okay? A year after year after 911
Claire Richardson 43:01
Yeah, so it's, it's been, it's very impressive that over the course of your career, just your ability to say, stay relevant and innovative, you continue to come up with new developments and new ideas for areas, and one being the Portland music venue that you're pursuing here in the city. I'd love to hear more about how that came to be, how that's going.
Howard Goldenfarb 43:30
That's a great project, and it to us, it is the continuation of the successful growth of Portland from in which we take a little bit of credit, there's a lot of credit that goes around to a lot of people. But what's happened with the restaurants? When we came to Portland, there literally were three restaurants in downtown Portland, Boone's, demillos, which, interestingly, is still there in different forms than they were, you know, 50 years ago and but a lot of the workers, lot of presidents of the bank, were brown bag to lunch because there weren't a lot of great opportunities to go to lunch. But the city has grown tremendously, and the Portland Music Hall is a, I think, not only is a great project, but it's an example of the continued growth of the city and the attractiveness and vibration excitement of Portland. This really is a project that Todd and Don law from Live Nation, who have been Live Nation has been promoting concerts in Portland for over 50 years. Don law had several different Don law presents SFX now Live Nation. Don is chairman of Live Nation New England, and it came about with an idea that Todd had that we discussed having worked at Live Nation when he was in college in Boston. Austin, and having been involved in the Love's concerts in the music industry, he thought that the development of Portland now justified having a proper concert venue of the of the size that we're we're proposing 3300 seats with all of the backup the sound systems, the the backs, back of stage, amenities that are required for performance today. And had a meeting with Live Nation called and set up a meeting with Live Nation, and they were considering the same thing, so they had a meeting, and both had the same ideas. And this is about three years ago in June, this coming June, three years ago next month, almost this month. Were they? Yeah, and it started with that, with it, with the two of them meeting, and it has now grown to be a project that we hope will get into the ground this fall, great, exciting project. It's something that the city needs. Portland has been for the 50 plus years I've been here a major stopping point on artists, performers itineraries. The I saw Frank Sinatra, important at the Civic Center. We had tickets to see Elvis Presley in 1977 he was starting his world starting his world tour in Portland, Maine, but he died the night before he died in August of 1977 we had tickets. I still have the tickets. And very good friend of ours who became a very good friend of ours, Jerry Weintraub, who was one of the largest concert promoters in the country and movie producer, but controlled the music industry for a lot of years. We became friends in the 80s because he has a he and his wife, Jerry has since passed away, but Jay and his wife still lives there. We were having dinner, and I told him that I still had tickets to that concert, and he started to laugh. And I said, Why are you laughing? He said, because so many people held on to the seats. The tickets for souvenir never had to refund the money. And this was worldwide. I mean, wherever he was going to tour, people had bought tickets in advance. Yeah, I'm sure it was sold out and and people said, Elvis is gone. We're going to hold these tickets for either emotional reasons, yeah, but Jerry produced concerts here through concerts West and Don law, who's who's our partner with Live Nation has been producing concerts in Maine and Portland, specifically, for years. It's a great town. It needs this level of facility in terms of amenities that are provided and the size venue. The Civic Center can hold more people, but the civic center is not set up as a concert venue. It's a sports arena. They have them. That's what I think. Where I saw Frank Sinatra, they set it up, but to have the proper staging and seating and whatever it's there are other good venues in the city, but this will be one that will bring tours performers who pass by Portland. They're in Boston. They go to Bangor in the summer for an outdoor concerts, but they don't come to Portland, OR can't come to Portland because it doesn't provide them the what they need. But it's a great city. It's been a great Music City for a long time, and like the expansion of the hotels, the restaurants in the city. We think this is going to add tremendously to not only the excitement of the city, but the revenue in the city for the hotels and restaurants and the tax revenue. It's going to be a great project. We had a planning meeting two days ago, and we're really into the deep details of crowd control and traffic control, and we've learned that there's plenty of parking. Most of the parking garages, even during concerts, are maybe 10% 20% occupied in the evening. So we've done a studies, and we've we've reached an agreement with a family that owns two of the garages, the mugar family, and there's a lot, and even the part of the city now that determined that there is plenty of parking available just has to be used, right? And we're working on that as well with the family, to reduce the rates in the evening, etc, open at later hours. But I think it's, it's the next step in the growth of the city and the excitement of the city and the attraction of the city for people coming here and people who live here.
Claire Richardson 49:25
I know you've mentioned Todd has really been working hard on this project. Yes, what has that you've worked on it with many other on many other projects as well. What has it been like working with your son? Before you answer, just know, I hope to have him on and I will ask him the same question about he'll have a chance to
Howard Goldenfarb 49:43
well, we'll discuss his answer ahead of you as we've discussed my answer, no, it's a it's an honor and a privilege. It really is. But you have to recognize when you work with your son, whether he thinks I work for him or I think he works for me. Yeah. Mean, you have to always keep in mind that you're dealing with an individual who's your son, your wife's son, your daughter's brother, and you have to do you'd have to deal a little bit differently, but it's it to me, it's an honor and privilege. I never had an opportunity to work with my dad. I mean, he did, I would go into a store on Saturdays and but the way that Todd and I worked together, and he worked in River Place, he was, when he got out of college, he went to work for TD Bank in Haverhill mass. And he, when he left there, he came to work at River Place, basically on working in construction, and then helped after we opened it with some issues that arose, construction issues that arose, did an excellent job of working with the tenants to make sure everybody was happy while we're dealing with the issues. And then he went on to do some other things when he moved to Florida, and we have an office together. I live in Florida, and we have an office together there. And it's, it's, it's great. I mean, there are days that you have issues, yeah, and decided to deal with an issue with your relative, or your son especially, or your daughter. Our daughter is in the real estate business as well, right? Is a developer in Massachusetts, yeah? And it's, I think it, it is a great privilege and pleasure. Did she ever
Claire Richardson 51:25
want to join your business?
Howard Goldenfarb 51:31
She's, she is, we talked about it at some point. I mean, but her husband is a developer as well. They were worked for different companies. She's been with her company for about 20 years, and her husband's been with his company for about five. They have great positions, and I think at some point they would both like to move to Maine when their kids maybe go off to college, but at the moment, no, yeah,
Claire Richardson 51:57
it's fun that you're all in real estate, though. It just makes for a great Thanksgiving conversation. I'm
Howard Goldenfarb 52:02
sure, I'm sure, I'm not sure she's doing what she's doing because of me, yeah, when I say me, because I'm in the real estate business. But maybe it was a natural outgrowth. I mean, she didn't study real estate when she went to college. I don't think there were any real estate courses at that time when she went to college, specific real estate coaches, yeah.
Claire Richardson 52:21
Now there's, there are a lot of real estate paths, and a former resident
Howard Goldenfarb 52:24
who passed away, Hank Spalding, started it at MIT, the first master's program in real estate, getting an MBA in real estate at MIT, yeah, started the first program. Now there are a number of them, a number of places. How do you
Claire Richardson 52:41
go about identifying a next project or next development? Is it something you wait for the opportunity to come to you or, well,
Howard Goldenfarb 52:50
there's never a problem if somebody brings you an idea to pursue that idea, knows you don't have to say, well, it's not my idea, so I'm not going to do it. No, you have to. I think you need to be open minded and look at it. But if you also have having been in the business so long, I look at things and say, how would I have done it if I, if I owned it, or, what about doing this there and again, with Todd being involved with this, he has a wide what wide network of friends, true friends and acquaintances. And for instance, we just opened in Austin, Texas 700 River, which is a 43 story high end rental building, apartment building, and we opened it in and when we opened it, it was about six years from the time we conceived of the idea. And we conceived of the idea with Todd's best friend from the time he was five years old to today, who moved to Austin from Maine 15 years ago. And Todd and he talked two three times a day, and he was in the land acquisition business. He would find sites, then find the developer and flip the land. And he found this site right downtown Austin, which is very small central business district, right in the heart of an area called the rainy District, which is a trying to think how, I guess you would call it the Old Port exchange area. It's where kids, college kids, go to entertain on the weekend, or a lot of bars, but a nice place, I mean, it's not a seedy place. And he found 10,000 square feet undeveloped. Then we acquired another 10,000 square feet basically undeveloped through John Todd's good friend and almost like our second son and conceived of this idea. Now it's coming on seven years. Took six years to get the building open, and that's not uncommon. So I said when you need long fingernails, it's you have to go through a long process. Because of approvals, because of financing, et cetera. So the project came to Todd through John and we got involved with it and said, do it. So a lot of the things, we just opened a hotel on Congress Street, the Longfellow that project came to Todd through two brothers who run a company called uncommon hospitality, who've done two or three other hotels, one across the street, the Francis on Congress Street. And Todd met with them, introduced he was introduced to them through someone else, and we got involved as CO general partners, as we were in Austin, Texas. So a lot of it will will be through his associations and mine. On occasion, I mean, people still call up brokers, call up individuals, call up with ideas, and depends upon how the idea hits you as to whether you pursue it, yeah.
Claire Richardson 55:59
And your point about being open minded. It's, it's very impressive when you pull up your portfolio, because you you truly don't take, like, count out any opportunity. I mean, you have a huge industrial portfolio, office, retail, hospitality. I'd
Howard Goldenfarb 56:16
like to say to Todd, he hates when I use this answer, but I say to people, anything that helps pay the bills. It's not far from the truth. I mean, when you're in real estate business, at least when I'm in the real estate I like to develop, I like to buy, I like to fix things up. I like to make things better. Todd has the same attitude. So there are some things I would as I've told you, don't ever call me about an office building. Yep, and I did plenty of office when we first started. All the properties we did were offices for the first few years, but today, not just because of the downturn in the office use resulting from the pandemic, but just the costs associated with turning an office over when a new tenant moves in, it just doesn't interest me. But retail, my daughter does a lot of affordable housing, which is a totally different business. Yeah, it's it's all tax driven. You really have to be a specialist in it. And made it interesting. That a lot of specialists in affordable housing and Section Eight housing. Yeah, the not so much doing the jobs up here, but elsewhere around the country. Yeah. So we'll look at most any opportunity with a couple of exceptions, offices being one of them, and that goes back long before the pandemic. Yes,
Claire Richardson 57:43
is there a single development that stands out to you in your mind as being very proud of or that you're just very fond of?
Howard Goldenfarb 57:57
It's like children, I think a little bit you know, you love every one of them, especially if they turn out well, if I were to say, I mean, one of, one of the projects I really enjoyed the most, which was more of an artistic success than a financial success, was the Atlantic house in Scarborough Beach. And I loved that project. I still love the project. It just I love the water, I love the ocean, I love the beach. And we built this on 18 Acres of ocean front property. We gave away eight acres to the city for conservation land, not just because it was being magnanimous, but it helped us with approvals, and we did something in the backyard of Prouts neck. We're not on Prout snack, we're on Scarborough Beach, which extends to Prout snack, and that's a very an area where a lot of people have a lot of pride in what goes on in their neighborhood and the adjoining neighborhood. And we successfully got their support for the project, and I just just the design of it. It's for 3930 Yeah, we'll 40 homes at 39 homes, townhouse homes, and just just something about it that appeals to me. But every one of the projects I can find something I like about Yeah, yeah. Truly, if we if, whether I still own it or don't own it, I can find something I like about it. But other than Atlantic house, which I said was more of an artistic success than a financial success, they all mean something well to us, good to us and good to me, yeah, yeah.
Claire Richardson 59:39
Is there a single development you pursued that was just a complete
Howard Goldenfarb 59:44
flop that we actually did yeah, when you were Yeah
Claire Richardson 59:51
or attempted, I guess
Howard Goldenfarb 59:56
I would, I mean the Atlantic coast, unfortunately. Yeah, after the crash in 88 stock market went down like 25% in one day in the early 90s. We built that, we opened that in 80 the market crashed in October of 88 and the first tenant moved in in December of 88 and we had, I think, 12 contracts, and not one of them walked away because of the stock market crash, which, you know, I sweated that one, yeah, but then sales slowed down a great deal because that, and then the late 80s, early 90s, that's what drove us to go to Europe, not just Danielle, my friend and partner saying, why don't we do outlet centers? But in the early 80s, I'm sorry. The late 80s, early 90s, New England went into a real estate depression, and what happened was that the regulators, who came up from Texas and Oklahoma, where the office building markets crashed, people were building empty buildings. And they were kidding the regulators at that time that things were great and whatever, they came up to New England after that, and they went after development with a passion. And that's the period of time where you had performing, non performing loans, which meant that you could own a building, make the payments. And technically, the building was underwater because it wouldn't appraise because of what was going on in the market, but you were making the payments because you either had the resources yourself or the building produced enough money. But technically it was underwater, and the regulators were causing the banks to take the mortgages back, to foreclose on the properties, and it was a very, very difficult time to be in the business. Thank God. We did not lose any properties. And we actually took advantage of the fact that some banks, which didn't know what to do with the properties once they took them back, because the regulators made them, made them do that, we were able to buy some properties very, very, very good prices. But that's part of what drove me to go to Europe. When Danielle suggested, Why don't we do this? There was, there was less to do in the market here in the early 90s. And I would have bet, in 9192 unsuccessfully, would have bet that banks wouldn't lend the money till the turn of the century, which was in the end of the 90s. And by 94 the banks were back throwing money at developers. Didn't take long for the country to bounce back. That's one of the reasons. When I you asked me about recessions, I said, every time we get into a recession, 2008 2009 2010 and you were involved in that period of time, I think maybe you weren't. I Right. Were you thinking about it? Is when I got in I mean, that was we thought the world was falling apart. Yeah, it was not just nationally that a recession. They were talking about depression. This was happening globally, all because of subprime loans and whatever. The early late 80s, early 90s were kind of like that period of time you just thought, with interest rates, prime rate at 21% and mortgage rates, if anybody, would give you a mortgage for a home at 1717, and a half percent, and inflation running at around 15% Bob monks, who was the smartest person I've ever met. He thought, I remember having a meeting with him. He thought that future inflation, the new zero, was going to be 10% that everything was going to be was inflation high yet was above 10% Yeah, 10% was built into the economy, right? And that's from the smartest person ever. So it's a very difficult time, as was the early 90s when we went to Europe, because it was hard to think of doing stuff in this country.
Claire Richardson 1:03:44
You've touched on your relationship with with Robert monks, and I'm curious, is there, is there any bit of advice, or anything you learned from him that has carried stuck with you through your career?
Howard Goldenfarb 1:03:57
Oh, I learned so much. It'd be hard to, it'd be hard to
Claire Richardson 1:04:01
we'll take a couple.
Howard Goldenfarb 1:04:07
He taught me always to be generous in with the people you're with, and in funny ways, it's hard to hard to really tell you what that meant. But I learned. I learned so much. I learned integrity. I hope I have integrity. I hope people view it that way. I learned to do. And maybe this fits in with integrity. You learn to do what follow through that you tell people you're going to do, and sometimes you have to suffer a little bit by that. In other words, you can't afford to do that, or you don't think it's right to do that, but you gave your word. Your Word is very important. I think maybe in another day or two, I could come up with more answers, but I think integrity and follow through. I mean, I could never match. I mean, Bob was a brill. Brilliant, brilliant person. I mean, he could sit down with, and I've seen this, he could go into a meeting with the head of a major US Corporation. He could sit down with the President of the United States and have an intelligent conversation of most any subject. He could also sit down with at that time, there were secretaries, no more secretaries, secretaries of departments in the government, but now everybody's an assistant or whatever, and having a discussion with the person behind the desk who sits outside the office and have a really, you know, nice, meaningful, and he gave you a warm feeling. Also could be very tough at times, and I would see those sides as well, but I'm talking about his capacity. I could never match that, but he taught me integrity and taught me to follow through with what you say. You're going to follow through, even if, even if it hurts, and I'm sure many other things that will come to my mind as soon as I walk out the door,
Claire Richardson 1:05:56
yeah. Well, from my perspective, I would say you certainly embody those qualities. I hope so. We've worked together for just a couple of years now, and really enjoyed the opportunities I get to work with you and and just whenever you're in conversation or your name is mentioned, it's always high praise. And that's from you
Howard Goldenfarb 1:06:19
know, I really believe when you ultimately leave this world, you leave certainly, you leave memories, you that, but your reputation, what people think of you, yeah, and how you make people feel. Nobody, nobody has 100% hit on that one. Sure, there are plenty of people, whatever, who could say other, other things, but hopefully most don't, yeah.
Claire Richardson 1:06:43
Well, I guess the last question I will leave you with, even though I feel like I could go on for much longer, is, what do you see for the future of Portland right now,
Howard Goldenfarb 1:07:02
one of the council meetings? Well, we've only been to one council meeting in conjunction with this project, the Portland Music Hall. I learned something because we moved our office to Scarborough 18 years ago, primarily because a lot of our projects are in Massachusetts, south it's easy to get to free parking, with a parking lot and a beautiful building in Scarborough, where our offices are, I don't have as much time walking around the city when our office was on exchange street or on Middle Street, you know, to break the day, I'd get out and walk around. Now I come in and I go to Bernstein sure I pull in their garage, or I went to Anthony's pizza and went to get lunch. I understand Monument Square has become very difficult. And somebody talking for David Turin, who you recently had your podcast, has a restaurant there. Fellow owns the bookshop, somebody who lives in one of the buildings in Monument Square talked about how difficult it's become with drug use and homelessness and whatever. And that was a surprise to me, because I just haven't in the past, certainly spending most of the year in Florida, I don't have the opportunity to walk around there and haven't. The last time I remember being in Monument Square, it wasn't like that. So unfortunately, part of the answer is, I think Portland has to come to grips, as a lot of places do. San Francisco has gone through this project. Probably, I'm not sure downtown San Francisco has done it successfully, but Portland has to me, a great future, but they have to deal with some problems that are not just inherent in this city, but in a lot of cities, a lot of areas, and that's drug use and homelessness. And I know they went through a big effort last year to clean up the encampments, which were all over. And the problem is not just moving the people away. The problem is dealing with the issue. A lot of it is mental health. A lot of it is drug use. A lot of it is just kids or young kids, young adults who have emotional or mental issues. You have to find you have to deal with that issue. You can't just move people away. But Portland has to deal with that. Because I understand it's not just there. It's in other places. Part of it is, you know, I think the not only the tax benefit the restaurants have suffered by this, but the influx of people coming in. We're planning on 120 125 concert, that's almost a third of the of the year, where we're not going to sell out 3300 seats every night, but we're going to have a lot of people coming in, going to stay at hotels. They're going to rest, you know, go to restaurants, go to other stores here, going to bring money, which is part of the solution. Unfortunately, money is necessary to deal with some of these issues. But I think Portland has, it's a great city. It has a lot of vibrancy. So it has to deal with a couple of major issues, one of them I mentioned in Monument Square, but I think our project will help that, not only by bringing in significant tax revenue, but economic benefits to the city, which then can be used to help some of these problems. Because you can't just put people in a bus and get them out of the area because they have to the issue has to be dealt with.
Claire Richardson 1:10:24
Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much. Thank you Howard, for joining us, and like I said, there's, I'm sure, a lot that we didn't even touch on, but for our first podcast, I'd say you did an excellent job, and I enjoyed speaking with you, and
Howard Goldenfarb 1:10:41
we left our business in the water.
Claire Richardson 1:10:48
But no, thank you so much. Well,
Howard Goldenfarb 1:10:50
thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to I don't mind speaking. It's just tough to get me to sit down and do it. I guess,
Claire Richardson 1:10:56
yes, yes. But we did it, and we very much appreciate that'll be the interesting one. Well, we'll get him on next that'll be my call later today, or at least once the Live Nation goes through. He
Howard Goldenfarb 1:11:08
wants to get that project to the point that we're ready to go into the ground. That's going to be exciting for the city.
Claire Richardson 1:11:14
Yes, will be. I look forward to seeing that develop and and seeing everything it has to bring to the city. Excellent. Well, thank you again. Thank you Howard. Thank you for being our guest today on the bolus beat a bolus company podcast. I really appreciate you taking the time to chat with us. You can learn more about Howard and the RAM companies at the company's website, which is www.ramcompaniesusa.com and if you'd like to learn more about the bolus company, please be sure to visit us@www.bolus.com you can also find us at the bolus company on Facebook and LinkedIn, and at the bolus CO on Instagram and X you.