Real estate developer Phillip Kafka and and architect Ishtiaq Rafiuddin discuss real estate development as a system for solving problems, which for Detroit, means ensuring affordability while creating new economic value.
Philip and Ish are behind some of Detroit's most exciting projects, including the award-winning restaurant and Takoi and Core City Park.
Links for Reference:
Takoi, Core City Park, True North, The Caterpillar, Design Core's Real Estate Design Guide, Edwin Chan, Julie Bargmann, tabula rasa, Ochre Bakery, Bloomscape.
Olga: [00:00:00] I'm Olga Stella, the Executive Director of Design Core Detroit. Thank you for joining us for Season Two of the Detroit City of Design Podcast. As stewards of Detroit's UNESCO City of Design designation, we aim to raise your awareness of how design can create conditions for better quality of life and economic opportunity for all.
Designers are professional problem solvers. And in Season Two, we will discuss the value of design to business and society. Back in February, we spoke with Detroit-based developer Phillip Kafka and architect Ishtiaq Raffudin, who are working together to lead new real estate concepts in Detroit’s Core City neighborhood. The value of design to real estate is an important topic to Design Core, because this September, we’ll be publishing a new Design Guide for Real Estate, which is intended to educate developers on the important role designers play in a development project.
Phillip and Ish keep the spirit of innovative design thinking alive, through some of the city’s most exciting projects, including the award-winning restaurant Takoi, Core City Park, and the potential to develop up to 100 lots in the Core City Neighborhood. Philip and Ish approach real estate development as a system for solving problems, which for Detroit, means ensuring affordability while creating new economic value. To learn more about Design Core’s Real Estate Design Guide, follow the link in the show notes.
Hi, Phillip and Ish, thank so much for joining us on the Detroit City Design Podcast today. I'm really happy to be talking to you.
Ish: [00:00:06] Thank you for inviting us. We're really happy to be here.
Phillip: Great to be here.
Olga: [00:00:08] Well, I know often when we've talked, it's been at tours of your developments in the Core City neighborhood. You're a real estate developer, Phillip, that's led with design in your projects and the value that's bringing to really creating a really interesting and welcoming place in the City of Detroit. And I thought it might help our audience know a little bit more about how the partnership between the two of you developed over time.
So I don't know which one of you would like to tell the story.
Phillip: [00:00:35] Oh, let Ish start.
Ish: [00:00:36] Sure. I'll go first. Phillip and I met, I think in 2011 in Istanbul. We met through a mutual friend and we remained friends for several years, and around 2013, actually ‘14, I learned that Phillip was buying property in Detroit and he bought a garage and he was planning to turn it into a restaurant.
Around the same time, I was starting my office, and I basically heard this through mutual friends that I asked Phillip if I could help him in designing the restaurant. Interestingly, Phillip already had a design done and I think, if I remember correctly, he had done it in-house. So it was a big kind of decision on his part to let me work on it cause he had already invested some time in it. But I believe I convinced him that there was a real value to design and that I could look at the project with a kind of vision that, you know, he couldn't envision or he couldn't envision with maybe some of the people he was working with. That started the collaboration process and that's where it started, so 2014.
Phillip: [00:01:40] Yeah, Ish and I met kind of casually, and like Ish said, he kind of tugged at my sleep. I was working on the Takoi project, converting an old gas station that I bought that had three walls and no roof into a restaurant. And, I have a lot of confidence on one hand, and I also have a lot of insecurity, what I mean by that is... I'll go ahead and move forward with my own ideas until somebody presents me with an idea that's better.
I knew that people who are smart and adept at design and architecture have better ideas than me, I just didn't necessarily feel like I needed to go find them. And Ish kind of tugged at my sleeve and found me and for the purpose of this conversation, it's interesting, I don't consider Ish a designer. I don't consider Ish an architect. I consider Ish a thinker who happens to practice architecture. I mean, I haven't even said these words to him necessarily, but our relationship is one where I'm inspired by the way Ish thinks. Design is a lot less interesting to me than thought actually is. And I think that when we start our process, and the thing that was most interesting about working with Ish was that he begins with a high level of thought that just happens to be working within the realm of architecture and design. And so that's what really got me to start working with Ish and got me interested in the way that he works.
Olga: [00:02:47] So, it's like framing the idea behind the real estate projects on a high level and then translating it down into how the spaces function, how things are laid out, how people move and use the physical spaces.
Ish: [00:03:02] I think that the collaboration between us is a connection that happens at an intellectual level first, and it is a real collaboration because Phil's ideas, which might be thoughts do get manifested in the projects, and so do mine. And so we can have a real conversation that is around the thoughts and not necessarily how things look. So that's how the conversation starts. And in terms of the way I work, I like to design with first principles—that's what we call it—which is that we need to figure out what we're trying to do at every scale from small to large, and in doing so we have to question, you know, everything.
So in the first project where we designed a restaurant, we questioned, I'm talking about Takoi, we really questioned what it is to be, you know, in a restaurant, and then what does this garage, what can it offer as a restaurant? You know, ultimately we rearranged the restaurant from its conventional kind of format into a very new format.
And I think, a new format that would serve the purposes of that building, but also for Detroit and also Phillip’s staff, and the chefs. So it's rethinking the format completely instead of saying, this is the restaurant format and let's do this, and then taking an approach, which is about decorating the existing format.
So we reformatted it, and therefore, when we had designed the project, we were really convinced that that was a project and we hadn't even had thought about materials or lighting—because that's actually an afterthought after you have the format. So when we presented our first presentation to Philip, was about the format, we didn't talk about any materials or lighting. And because we connected at that level, that high level, I think he was convinced and he was extremely excited. It was a great meeting. And I think Phillip is very open-minded because I think he understands the value of rethinking those things and the value that it can bring in terms of an offering to whoever it's serving, whether it's the users or the guests, in this case, the restaurant.
Olga: [00:04:54] I mean, there's a lot of real estate development happening in Detroit right now and has been happening for the last couple of years. I think, Phillip, it'd be great just to know a little bit more about what's been driving kind of your vision. You have a cluster of properties in a neighborhood area close to downtown, but not downtown. What has been driving that? Because I think people have an impression of Detroit as a playground, and I think for those of us who are here on the ground, we know that's not the case, but there is a huge opportunity for creativity and for doing things in a different way than maybe you would do it in a different place.
Phillip: [00:05:28] I can speak on that very directly. I never liked to think about any city as a market. I don’t like to think about buildings as assets, which is basically the way most real estate people think about their market and their assets. What is your asset class? What's the market like? It's an uninteresting way to think about real estate because inevitably the way something functions and works is only to service the market.
It's only to perform as a certain type of asset. And when people start thinking that way, they buy things at a market price, they develop things that are going to rent from market value, and that's not the opportunity in Detroit. Every single city in America offers that opportunity. The opportunity in Detroit is to acquire a piece of real estate that’s at a low cost. It's still in the midst of a market, let's call it a market, for the sake of this conversation. It has about 5 million people and enough wealth per capita—This is within the region, not the city of Detroit. It has about 5 million people and plenty of wealth to underpay for a piece of real estate and to take the money that you save on acquisition and invest into an idea.
So let's say an acre of land in a city, in a regular city, that has an international airport, and has highways, and water lines, and sewer lines, and electric systems, and everything that Detroit has—an acre of land in a city like that could cost around a million dollars. Whereas if you're pioneering enough, and you're adventurous enough, which I was at one point when I was going to Grand River, and Warren, you can find an acre of land for $20,000.
That's not $980,000 that you save. That's $980,000 that you invest into an idea. So instead of spending that money on the acquisition of the land, you spend that money on an idea. That gives you more latitude to start thinking about trees and to not worry about giving somebody who's paying $1,200 a month, 24 foot high ceilings.
That money is somewhere in the fact that you saved on your acquisition, and so you can start to really think big and figure out how you give people access to the three things that I think are most essential in a project: which are either volume or natural light, which is space or natural light, and landscape. That to me is the way I think about a project.
Now, when I start to take that philosophy and meet Ish where he exists, he's able to take all these words—I studied philosophy in college—he's able to take all these words and make them work, first of all, and then put a ribbon on it, which is the design, at the end.
The design, the way something looks, like materials, are so interchangeable to us. Yeah. I mean, whereas most developers are like, well, I really liked the granite countertops, or I really liked the marble sinks, or I really liked the Grohe faucets. I don't care. I really don't. Ish is taking me to a place that it's so meta-those things, that it's like, whatever! And the way something looks is a consequence to how it actually works. And then those last few things are basically just choosing the color of your suit.
Olga: [00:08:20] Right. Well, this has been exactly the kind of mantra that we've been saying at Design Core. I mean, we use the Steve jobs quote.
“Design isn't about how something looks, it’s about how it works.” And I mean, this is why you're the winners of one of our first Commerce Design Awards for Takoi. Takoi looks beautiful, but it wasn't about how beautiful it looked, it was about that functionality and the story that you told about, “this is a restaurant in a market where we don't quite know how things are going to work out. Could it just be a bar? Could it just be a catering operation?” Like, it could serve multiple purposes. And designing with that idea in mind was really what set Takoi apart. And I think it'd be interesting to know some other kind of food and beverage concepts... What are the big ideas that are driving your design thinking, you know, your philosophy in those other kinds of food and beverage, you know, retail or more consumer facing projects?
Ish: [00:09:16] So I think the other project we're working on right now, is a mix of commercial as well as residential projects.
To go back to what Phillip was saying, we're trying to do inspired spaces where I think volume and light are a big factor to how we're designing spaces. And in certain situations we’re working with people that are going to be using the spaces. In the case of the restaurants, I have an active conversation with the chef, the bar manager, the general manager about how it functions and they participate in the design.
So it's an inclusive process to get those first principles into the design process. So in general, there's a lot of collaboration and we collaborate very heavily with the contractor that we work with to the point where we don't make a lot of decisions until we're ready to build. And that's because we don't want to commit too much design work, but also, we want to be flexible as we get bids on material choices so that we can build faster or more effectively or more efficiently. And I think that our next biggest challenge in terms of Core City is that we're working on a lot of residential, because that's one of the things that is lacking and we really want to create a community of residents who will make up the neighborhood and contribute in a sustainable way.
And those are things that are kind of on the threshold where we're starting to work on now. And I think for the residences, the main point is it's really about giving them something—such as an idea or a value—that they cannot have anywhere else through design and through the developmental structure that we've set up in realizing those projects. So, for every project, the goal is to have something completely new and different and unique, to have variety, but also to push boundaries in terms of what's constructable from a design standpoint. And I think that's what makes the opportunity so interesting because you really have a kind of “tabula rasa” in terms of how you can approach the entire project.
Olga: [00:11:06] Most real estate developers are obsessed with how fast they're going to get their return on investment and managing that net income, and the time it takes to get a project done. And it sounds like from the partnership that you Ish have developed these projects, there's a recognition that a development project in Detroit costs money to do, you know—have to keep an eye on the bottom line—but there's a larger value, right, to the tenant, to the person who is buying it to the person who's coming to participate in that. How are you balancing that? You know, how are you thinking about that with your real estate developer hat on?
Phillip: [00:11:43] It's a good question. I think that the biggest difference in the way that I think versus your typical real estate developer is, again, I don't think about the city as a market, and I'm not using investors' dollars, so I'm investing my own dollars that I'd made as an entrepreneur in New York.
And for me, I always try to frame the way I think about business with war analogies in particular, World War II. My grandfather was a veteran, very inspiring to me, and Ish and I are in a foxhole together. And there's a certain point where you cross into enemy territory and you're on your way to accomplishing a mission that you stop caring as to how long it's going to take. You just want to make sure you get it done, and of course you want to be as efficient as possible. It's very rare that innovation and efficiency go hand in hand. Innovation requires a lot of trial and error, and a lot of the mistakes that I learned on True North, Ish and I sat down and we looked at the next Quonset Hut project that I'm doing. It's not a Quonset Hut project, it's a residential product that uses a Quonset Hut, and we are addressing some of those mistakes. Now, has this been the most efficient path towards the end goal, which is a mastery, let's say of sorts, of real estate development? No. But am I getting closer to my mission, which is a true understanding of how to be excellent in what I do? Yes. And it doesn't matter how long that takes, because that's a forever process. And so, this is just what I do.
It just so happens that right now, I'm single. I have no dependents, no children to take care of, so I'm able to devote—Ish the same—He's a martyr for his work. And I know that as long as I'm in the foxhole with Ish, we both have the same idea, which is to solve problems and to accomplish this mission of doing great work.
It just so happens that we both landed in real estate or architecture to do it. You know? It's like whatever I'd be doing, if we were scientists, I think that we'd be approaching our work as scientists the same way. It's just a desire to accomplish some sort of vision and mission about what I deem to be good—really good work.
Even if I had the chance to develop...If somebody told me, hey, you can spend the next year of your life developing a building that's going to be fully leased and give you a great return on your investment, but is going to not get you any closer to doing better work, I wouldn't want to spend a year doing that. And yes, sure I make some financial decisions sometimes, but simply to subsidize the research and the work that we're doing.
So that's the biggest difference, I think. I really have skin in the game, and like I always say, once you cross into enemy territory, and this is, you realize this on one development project, on a larger vision, you can't just put your gun down and say, I don't want to play anymore. You have to charge ahead and figure out how to accomplish the mission. [Olga: Right.] And so right now the mission is: how do we really make a neighborhood, and our thesis, my thesis, and I think working with Ish is, inspired space and landscape and really thoughtful, accessible design is going to catalyze this neighborhood and make it a real place.
Ish: [00:14:49] I think that we both have this vision... because I'm an architect and I started urban planning, and I understand the history of architecture and urban planning, but, in the last few decades, architecture has been kind of lost to the wealthy. And design-inspired spaces have not been accessible to real people. And I think we both shared this vision where we want it to be accessible to everybody, at some level. So I think that's part of our goal too, is because we don't want it to be just for the elites of the society. We want it to be for everybody and therefore we have to keep the budget down, we have to create interesting, amazing spaces.
It's pushing both of those things because unfortunately, as an architect and urban designer, urban planner, it's a personal goal of mine to do that.
Olga: [00:15:30] And I think it'd be great if you could take us on a tour of the neighborhood, right? You know, as, as we're sitting here in the podcast studio, but as we start to help our audience think about this neighborhood that you're helping to develop...And I think what's so exciting is the way you're also trying to integrate into a neighborhood that was already there.
Phillip: [00:15:47] We're working at the intersection of Grand River and Warren. And just past that there's the Grand Trunk rail line, which it all kind of makes a space. Like, I'd always been kind of frustrated in terms of finding a place to develop because these main roads in Detroit are corridors, and you kind of just drive through.
We found this place where there was a block and there was an asphalt parking lot and three buildings surrounding it. I bought those buildings. I bought the parking lot. I knew that could be a congregation place. The railroad line frames the neighborhood, and then across Grand River, we're developing residential. And so the products that we're working on now—True North is completed, Ish was a significant collaborator on the park. We had a landscape architect, but, Ish and his thinking was of significant importance on that park. All the buildings that are surrounding the park, Ish thought about the program and the circulation of the buildings. Ochre Bakery is designed by their own designer, but the architecture and the way the buildings work, we collaborated on.
The building on the other side of Warren, just North is a grocery store that is now going to be a corporate headquarters for a company called Bloomscape. Ish architected that building. The building was going to be eight apartments and three commercial spaces, but the idea...see, the architecture...We didn't renovate that building. We, what I call, “genetically engineered” it.
And Ish went in as a scientist and changed the DNA of the building and really architected it. And it was designed to be eight apartments and three commercial spaces. The architecture and the DNA of the building was so compelling, the company came in and said, we want the whole building. And that's because of the idea that was there, which was, we needed to replace the whole roof anyway, we're going to be doing that as it is, let's cut out three courtyards to bring light into the middle of the building. You love trees, Philip, let's plant 23 trees in the middle of the building and have this amazing building, which just so happens to be where people live. It's an amazing building, whether people are living there and working there.
And then we're doing The Caterpillar, which is eight residential units within one large Quonset Hut, anchoring a public park. And we're starting to think about...I've got like 20 other acres of land there were starting to think about. We're starting with phase one, which is probably four or five acres, and we're starting to do housing.
In addition to working with Ish on that project, Edwin Chan, who I worked on with True North, he's also designing housing. So, I liked people who have a very specific vision. I don't like people who treat me like a client and give me what I want. I like people who challenge me and treat me like a collaborator. And Ish is that way, and Edwin's that way, and the landscape architect we work with Julie Bargmann, she's that way too. And so the three of us or four of us are collaborating on this neighborhood. So Ish is gonna do half the housing. Edwin's gonna do half the housing. And Julie is basically designing the entire neighborhood as a park, where there's moments of architecture just sprinkled in.
Olga: [00:18:28] The opportunity for landscape is so unique, especially to Detroit, but I think it could be more and more in other places too. Especially those industrial cities that have seen decline of more traditional uses. I think a lot of real estate developers don't think about landscape as adding value. They think of it as just window dressing. How does landscape, how does this idea of the architecture in a park create value for what you're trying to build?
Phillip: [00:18:55] I'll answer this business-wise very strategically, and then I'll let her talk about it. In terms of his philosophy, cause I haven't really heard it's succinctly on landscape. We worked a lot on landscape together, but we kind of understand each other, so sometimes we don't talk about our ideas as much to each other, unless we're working on a specific project.
So to me, the challenge in Detroit is the same challenge that you have in New York, interestingly, which is a problem of scarcity. In New York, there's no property, it's extremely scarce. In Detroit, there's so much property and there's so little natural assets, that there's nothing that creates scarcity. So it's the same problem. You're on the same spectrum, just on two opposite ends of it. So how do we actually increase the value of land property in a place where there's a lot of it, and nothing that distinguishes one bit of it from the next.
Well, ocean front property is the nicest property in the world, let's say. So what's the next best thing to an ocean? A park. So if we want to create scarcity on the property that I own—so many developers who worked at SALT already know this, just doesn't have the courage to do it—so my idea is that we use landscape to create an oceanfront and then build with great architecture along the oceanfront, which happens to be parks. And that's the way you create scarcity.
Now, the land that I own, where I develop, is very different. It's scarce, there's nothing else like it in Detroit. And so that's the business side of it. And by the way, the day you finish an architecture project, the real estate begins to deteriorate. Whereas the day you plant the tree, it only gets better. And so, it's the way to balance your investment. I think it's the greatest return on investment, but, you have to be forward-thinking. You have to not be thinking about a place as a market and as what you're building as an asset. If you start to think about it as a place that you're making, you start to realize trees are the best thing you can do.
Olga: [00:20:41] Ish, what’s your view about this landscape component in this neighborhood that you're building together?
Ish: [00:20:46] I really enjoy the landscape in Detroit, and even when we first started working here, we had a lot of conversations, Phillip and I, about the landscape here and how Detroit is so horizontal and it's a real spatial condition, because it's an experience that you can only have through movement, In fact.
It's scaler, so you can see what we call, with our landscape architect, “wild and wooly,” kind of habitats, but also these like wild grass habitats, but then at a larger scale when you're moving in a vehicle, you see just like open land, right? So it's a very interesting experience. And it doesn't exist in any metropolitan space in America, except for potentially some of the post industrial cities, but not at this scale.
So it's incredible. So to me, it was always like a factor, like we have to design with the land and the land has to play a role. And we have taken the philosophy that is going to play the leading role in the design of whatever we're doing. And in Core City, in particular, we've taken the approach where we're intentionally underbuilding because we don't want to have too much infrastructure. And in this case, in our case with Core City, too many parking spots or parking structures at all actually. So we want to underbuild intentionally to create—because the landscape already existed—but to actually frame and preserve the existing kind of landscapes that exist there.
And Phillip had the vision to work with Julie Bargmann, our landscape artist. She was very, very talented, and she has a very similar philosophy to the work we're doing because she actually specializes in post-industrial landscapes and in bringing new life to them. But not doing it in a way where it's artificial, but keeping some of the existing conditions, which I think, Detroit has a multitude of these landscapes. So I think it's a very interesting process to work with her and think about landscape in this way. Which isn't super artificial, but it's not, you know, super rural. It's somewhere in between: to work with the landscape rather than enforce your vision on it.
Olga: [00:22:35] Have you found that the landscape piece is also then a unifying piece in this neighborhood between the residents who have been there for many years, the new residents who are coming, and then the visitors who are also coming? Either to work or play in the neighborhood.
Phillip: [00:22:51] I talked about the business side of the landscape, but the balance to that, because to talk about the business side of something is one aspect of it—The other, the balance of that, is that it's the most generous thing that we can do.
Everybody benefits from a beautiful street that has beautiful trees and shade and is a place. And so the neighbors obviously enjoy it, they love it. It's the most democratic thing that we can design and build. It's public space. And a lot of what we think about when we talk about landscape isn't just trees, which is important, but it's basically public space that everyone has access to for no entry fee whatsoever.
And really, if you really get into my development philosophy right now in Detroit, the idea is a minimum amount of development to subsidize public space. And in turn, the development of that significant public space increases the value of the real estate. The two will play off each other. The real estate subsidizes the public space, which in turn, increases the value of the real estate.
This is all unproven, we'll find out in 10 years.
Olga: [00:23:51] Yeah! [Laughter] But I think we're seeing some of your unproven ideas start to play themselves out, right? In terms of testing the idea of affordable housing through the Quonset Hut design, I think the Caterpillar project, which we touched on a little bit, but this idea of how design may help to cut through some city regulatory issues. I don't know either of you wants to touch on that, but there are these, yeah, maybe they're unproven, but you're starting to see some evidence, right?
Phillip: [00:24:15] I want her to tell you about the Caterpillar project because it's a very smart project. I gave Ish a challenge. I said, I'd like to put eight residential units inside of one Quanset Hut. Here you go, Ish, please figure it out. And he did.
Olga: [00:24:28] Ish, how'd you figure it out?
Ish: [00:24:30] Um. [Laughter] I don't know if I have like a short answer to that, but I mean...
Phillip: [00:24:36] I am going to write Ish’s biography.
Olga: [00:24:38] I will read it.
Ish: [00:24:40] I like challenges. I like riddles. And then in the case of this architectural riddle, it was really about some of the things that Phillip already established, but the city allows you to, you know, on a residential lot, build up to eight residential units on one lot, given it's a certain size.
So this is the challenge we took on for this. And basically we combined all eight units into one structure, and that's something that we had a vision for. We created a kind of anti-thesis to what Philip did with Edwin Chan on True North. So instead of having eight individual units, we decided we want to do something radically different, for a different market, and then combine all of the units into one hut. So we did one hut, and then we designed it, instead of having natural light coming from the ends of the huts, which is typical, we decided that we're going to do pre-engineered windows that the Steel Master who makes the huts for us, fabricated for us.
And we decided to do the windows along the hut and we divided the hut into eight units in kind of like a sushi roll format. And essentially it's kind of like a townhouse, but in a re-imagined format. And then that allowed us, like, incredible efficiencies and it allowed us to have incredibly tall spaces. The hut itself has 23 foot tall ceilings. {Olga: wow] And it goes from 800, there's a small, medium, large 800 and 1200 square feet. So it's very inspired for space, and then you also have semi-public front yard, which is kind of like a garden, you know? It's like we're thinking now about integrating it into the neighborhood at large in terms of landscaping. But it's a very inspired project with radically rethinking, kind of like a multifamily apartment building.
Phillip: [00:26:11] And really the idea is, to put it in a sentence, Ish figured out with design, how to give people for between $1,000 and $2,000 per month, a museum quality space, period. That's the idea. How do you, for that price point, give people a museum quality residence. That's the idea. Yeah. And you know, his innovations in design allow us to do that. And not only that, it's anchoring a park. We're planning 60 trees in front of the hut.
Olga: [00:26:37] And it sounds like you only had to pull one permit from the city because you were able to create that idea and implement it within the restrictions of the regulation.
Ish: [00:26:46] We did it all according to the current zoning codes. We didn't challenge any of that. And you don't have to cause those rules kind of like, set constraints that generate creativity, and not cripple it.
Phillip: [00:26:56] Nobody would ever guess. They look at that. They're like, how did you do that? I'll tell you fun fact about Ish. I asked Ish, I said, if you weren't an architect, what would you be?
And I say this Ish, is devout. He's thoughtful. He's sincere. He's sensitive. Tough too—what he said, if I wasn't an architect, that he’d be a criminal.
Ish: [00:27:15] And it's true. Yeah. I like to mastermind. So if I didn't have something good to mastermind about, I would probably do something bad. [Laughter]
Phillip: [00:27:25] We like to mastermind together the way the zoning code works and use it to our advantage and give the city a project that they're like, what? This is by code? How did you do that? Yeah, and so that's a fun process for us.
Olga: [00:27:38] Well, that's what makes cities interesting, great places, right? I mean, I think in my career, I've worked with a lot of real estate developers and everybody, you know, people want to make money, but at the end of the day, if you're just going to churn out standard stuff that looks like everybody else's stuff, you're not actually creating value.
And what's been so great about our conversation today is how, whether it's with Takoi, the Core City Park, Caterpillar. All of these projects together, they're creating so much value. Not just financial value, but value in terms of the place, value in terms of the experience. And it didn't have to cost a bazillion dollars. You know, it didn't have to take three years of trying to change the regulations and get around the code. You can do it within a limited budget, within the constraints that are out there, if you have thoughtful design. And if you put the front end in, that's what I love about going to the neighborhood, right? And being there is you can see this in action.
Phillip: [00:28:40] Thank you.
Olga: [00:28:41] I'm so glad that we were able to have this time together today and for you to be able to tell us the story I don't think a lot of people know. I think they go and they see the development and they don't realize the thoughtfulness behind them, like, kind of this inspired vision that helps drive it. And I know we're going to keep our eyes on what's coming to the neighborhood and the work that you two are doing together.
Ish: [00:29:03] Thank you. Thank you so much for this conversation.
Phillip: [00:29:05] Yeah, thanks. It was great.
Olga: This has been the Detroit City of Design podcast. If you like what you just heard, please share this episode on social media, via email or by any other means. For more information on Design Core Detroit visit designcore.org or search the hashtag #DesignCoreDET. That's Design C-O-R-E-D-E-T. Keep up with the show by subscribing for free in your favorite podcast app. Just search: Detroit City of Design. And we hope you will join us for Detroit Month of Design this September.
The Detroit City of Design Podcast is produced by Olu and Company and edited by JAG in Detroit. Music by Jeff Miguel Wayne, courtesy of Ghostly Records. Special thanks to Jessica Malouf of Design Core Detroit. This podcast is a product of Design Core Detroit, part of the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan.