Providing Access to Technologies Through Investing in Communities with Bryan & Alex – Ep. 50

About the Guest

I am extremely excited to share this next conversation with all of you. Today on the show I have Bryan Feil and Alex Jones of Bitwise Industries. Bryan Feil serves as the VP of Real Estate Development at Bitwise Industries, overseeing the coworking, building development, and hospitality teams. Bryan assistants in locating, designing, and identifying architectural partners for each Bitwise Real Estate project. He especially enjoys being able to help Bitwise’s city expansion projects and revitalizing downtowns through growth and development. Bryan Feil grew up in Bakersfield, CA with the desire to use business as a tool to impact lives. That passion took its first form in co-founding and developing Neighborhood Industries, an organization focused on operating businesses that reveal value in people so that they can be positive contributors to their community. Alex has seven years of experience in the Civil Engineering industry. He has worked on water & wastewater treatment projects, residential subdivisions while working as an Assistant Engineering for consulting firms located within the Central Valley of California. Currently, Alex works for Bitwise Industries as a Project Manager for the Real Estate Development Team. Day-to-day activities include defining and tracking project scopes, schedules, and budgets to meet project targets. He also monitors progress and coordinates work with architects, contractors, and engineers.

Since July 1, 2013, the day they opened Bitwise Mural District, they’ve focused on connecting humans from marginalized communities and stories of systemic poverty to skills and resources necessary to access opportunities in the tech industry. They do this through their three main pillars which include Bitwise Real Estate, Bitwise Technology Consulting, and Bitwise Workforce Training. This company has an interesting business model. I would highly recommend you learn more about their work by finding them online at bitwiseindustries.com.

In this episode, we are going to discuss how their campus projects help to fulfill the mission of Bitwise, a behind-the-scenes look into the criteria they use when evaluating potential projects, and how to build excitement in the surrounding community for your upcoming project. There is loads of great information in this episode and I greatly appreciated Bryan and Alex for taking the time out of their extremely busy schedules to discuss this topic of providing access to technologies by investing in communities with me.

As always, if you have enjoyed the show, please subscribe to the show and share it with your friends in the industry. There will be more exciting conversations on the shows to come.

Main Take-Away’s From This Show

This was another fun episode to record. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing about Bryan and Alex’s experience at Bitwise. It’s fun to hear how two seemingly very different individuals can team up to make really cool things happen in these communities through Bitwise Industries. Some might say that the lack of formal training has actually been their greatest asset when tackling these projects. They don’t take anything for granted and ask tons of questions. This mindset will take them a long way with Bitwise. There were so many great talking points that Bryan and Alex made throughout the discussion, so it is hard to just pick three for my main take-away’s this week. The following main topics of the show come from an understanding of placemaking that they both possess.

1. How to Build Excitement and Connection with the Surrounding Community with your Project
2. Who said Older Buildings aren’t Exciting
3. Never be Afraid to Push the Boundaries

As always, I will dig into each of these “take-aways” every week on the blog. So, without further a due, here we go!

How to Build Excitement and Connection with the Surrounding Community with your Project

I believe this is the main point I got from talking to both Bryan and Alex on the show. The goal of Bitwise Industries when creating these campus projects is to provide a place where people to connect, exchange ideas, and provide excitement in the community. I honestly believe this should be the goal for anyone looking to provide beneficial developments within the urban core. This is essentially placemaking by bringing people from the public areas and allowing them to interact with the spaces within the buildings themselves.

You can tell that both Bryan and Alex are passionate about creating these spaces and it shows in the types of projects they have worked on. They are truly utilizing these Bitwise Campus’s as extensions of the Bitwise Industries mission. They do this by engaging with the public and drawing them in to the campus common areas with all types of events and mixers. They make the spaces inviting and create large common areas, similar to town centers, in which people can feel safe in sharing ideas and thoughts. As Alex mentioned, he himself was drawn to these Bitwise Campus’s even before he began working with them due to the great excitement and buzz that surrounded them.

Who said Older Buildings aren’t Exciting

Most of the buildings that Bitwise has repurposed were originally constructed in the early 1900s. Suffice it to say, buildings of this era tend to come with “surprises”. Alex and Bryan have seen their fair share of building surprises through their experience at Bitwise as discussed in the episode. Unfortunately, this is rarely unavoidable when dealing with older buildings in the urban core. Due to the nature of city growth and the passage of time, buildings are often scabbed onto or renovated in ways that the original buildings were never intended. These renovations (and possibly the original construction) have little in the way of record keeping.

It’s often hard to find blueprints or plans for improvements to the buildings themselves when dealing with buildings of this period. The best way to do research for these types of buildings would be to examine the previous uses and make some assumptions on the type of construction or improvements that would have been used for this type of use. Other than that, there is little you can do to see what is behind the next wall without actually opening it up. You can almost guarantee improvements to the plumbing, fire suppression, and electrical lines with buildings of this age. You’ll definitely want to listen to the show to hear what the guys have seen in their previous buildings. Just maybe you will be able to prepare some new contingencies based on what they have seen previously.

Never be Afraid to Push the Boundaries

This last main point is one that is almost too simple, but often overlooked by those in the real estate industry and potentially even harder to actually adopt. You should never be afraid to push the boundary of what some may say is possible. This is really a mindset shift more than anything. It was interesting to see the dichotomy between both Bryan and Alex on this last point. Bryan is a little more abstract in his thinking, so he has never been afraid to push the boundary of what the engineers and architects on the project say is possible. Alex understands that there is value in doing so but with a more analytical viewpoint, he finds it much harder to do.

Alex made a great point that he is learning to ask for what they want in terms of the design of the various campus projects and push the design team to be creative to make these requests possible. This allows them to really create some unique reuse projects that help them stand out from the rest. This promotes the mission of Bitwise in a way as it is grounded in the constant pursuit of innovation.

As you can see from the take-aways above, this podcast episode was absolutely full of great information on making it in real estate development and the benefits of utilizing placemaking techniques in infill developments. If you have enjoyed the content and the show, please subscribe to the show below and share it with your friends in the industry! We’ll have many more great discussions on the shows to come.

Providing Access to Technologies Through Investing in Communities with Bryan & Alex – Ep. 50

About the Guest

Main Take-Away’s From This Show

How to Build Excitement and Connection with the Surrounding Community with your Project

Who said Older Buildings aren’t Exciting

Never be Afraid to Push the Boundaries

To Learn More About Bryan, Alex, and the Bitwise Industries Team, Check out the Following Websites:

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