TEDxDesMoines - Paul Rottenberg - Lessons From the Growth of Des Moines
like mike says i'm the president and the founder of orchestrate hospitality we're a hospitality management company i started orchestrating 2000 and over the past 11 years we we've opened three hotels in the suburbs central gateway market django we also operate the raccoon river brewing company the hotel fort des moines and we just recently took over mizzoti's over on the south side it was by way of introduction i would say the opportunities i've had and the wrong turns i've taken have been equally humbling and educational i'm going to warn you i don't do a lot of public speaking i'm a behind the scenes guy i'm an idea guy a bookkeeper kind of guy and and i've been fortunate to be part of some exciting projects with some great partners so this experience for me is kind of like crosby stills and nash debuting at woodstock my lack of my lack of public speaking seems odd considering the fact that my brother my father and both both my grandfathers are pastors in the reformed church and that facts odd in itself because six of my eight grandparents were orthodox polish jews at any rate i grew up around guys who really felt strongly about what they believed and i've always found things to be a bit more fluid um and you add to this the fact i'm a gemini and you'll find out why i often frustrate people because i have a tendency to hold dueling ideas in my head at the same time but for me i found a lot of my lessons managerial and spiritually in the words of loud sioux and the dow to ching and then i have a pretty strong dose of the wizard of oz thrown into that in the dao loud suit says the motion of the way is to return the use of the way is to accept all things come from the way and the way comes from nothing my path in life has been as a manager and i've always seen management as a path more than a destination along my path as a manager i've had the pleasure of becoming an entrepreneur as a manager i've been able to use the way to accept as an entrepreneur i've been able to find the joy of making things from nothing so i really appreciate that last video as my focus has been as an entrepreneur in hospitality and i've worked largely the last 25 years in downtown des moines that's going to be the core of my reflections today and i don't have a clear set of instructions on what des moines looks like in the future or how we get there but i'd like to take a walk through some of the things i've been involved with and share some of the lessons that i've taken away i moved to des moines in 1986 and i opened a restaurant with a guy named mike lavalle at the corner of fifth and walnut and it was called the city grill we were right in the kaleidoscope mall which had just opened then it was really remarkable because downtown des moines had a retail mall right in the center of downtown des moines was in a period of great renaissance the civic center opened in 79 a guy named mike steinmetz opened the mets across the street from the civic center in the homestead building capitol square opened in 1983 it had its own hot anchor restaurant two rivers cafe court avenue was coming on big with mainstays like spaghetti works and then the kaplan hat company opened up in the saddlery building big names came together to make these things happen names like cry near hubble and nap a lot of the corporate community came and kicked in well a lot of these projects still stand today the renaissance didn't really maintain traction downtown was perceived as being dirty and unsafe and it was hard to get people to come downtown from the suburbs which were already beginning to expand restaurants closed and changed hands des moines felt like a ghost town on the weekends the walnut transit mall never really worked out the way it was supposed to and while the skywalks had great benefits retail fizzled on the street level and largely vanished i spent the better part of the 90s operating the hotel fort des moines at 10th and walnut and wishing i was five blocks to the east connected to the skywalk in the center of downtown's largest office buildings we opened raccoon river to good success but four restaurants opened and closed in the space that's now django during the same time the city was developing the des moines vision plan that resulted in the western eastern gateway plans over the course of all my life and business i don't think i've ever seen a plan that was that large and ambitious worked so well how often does the city spend a bunch of money on drafting a plan and having endless charettes and then you look up and it worked this is one of the great blows to municipal cynicism the development of the vision plan set up the fight to save the masonic temple on 10th and locust and i have to admit i drove past that building for years and all i saw was a pawn shop in a wig shop 10th and locust didn't jump out to me as a key crossroads in downtown des moines a lot of people wanted to tear it down fortunately a lot of other people saw the potential for the space and with the bookies spearheading the charge and some really creative public and private partnerships the temple for performing arts was born and our properties centro django gateway market and the soon to arrive zombie burger really came out of this growth period in des moines along with full court presses great properties and the fantastic bistros that have developed around downtown like alba luca and proof what's it take to move forward and keep the renaissance going why did the renaissance of the 80s stall and today we look out a city that is routinely recognized as a really great place to live and do business by people who provide that kind of recognition from all over the united states here's some things i think about regarding des moines and being an entrepreneur and they're not in any particular order a journalist named herbert baird swope said i can't give you the formula for success but i can give you the formula for failure which is to try to please everybody try to do try to make people happy but find your niche and stick with it you're not going to get there by being being everything to everybody diversity is a huge factor in the in the early 2000s des moines started seeing a boom in diversity and culture and in business the temple for performing arts brought black box theater it brought iowa its first starbucks it brought centro the city put focus on our library the papa john's gave us the sculpture park the civic center boomed we've got small bistros crazy and fun bars and big locally owned fine dining restaurants and the east village has developed a great collection of retail small and big part of the diversity that's been created in is this in scope we have the event center and the temple for performing arts they're very different in scope but i would argue they've been equally important to developing the fabric of downtown des moines we have my ob9 and we have centro different cuisines very different in scope both keenly important to making an environment that's dynamic and exciting we have really big companies and we got a lot of great little companies and startups in downtown des moines and building up around the east village and a lot of you guys who are are here today we have the gateway market new oriental la tapatia a great sense of diversity big small independence and chains is something i think about des moines and its leaders sometimes suffer from suburban brand envy we ask ourselves why does west des moines get all the cool big brands and they never come here i think a blend of brands and independence is important i was involved in getting starbucks into the temple and i was involved in getting panera into the davis brown tower those businesses work very well with our downtown restaurant community they work well with our places on 10th street central django and raccoon river but i get concerned when i hear city leaders supporting whole foods in the center of des moines because big box stores are a whole other animal they have seas of parking lots of traffic and most importantly they take lots of our dollars and lots of our jobs and they send the money out of des moines they say they claim that they they create jobs and they announce how many jobs they create but those jobs come from small local independent retailers and the people that are creating the great fabric for des moines so we've got to get over kind of this paradox we have that we're so excited and enthused about the independence and what the great fabric of des moines is but we wonder why we can't get the big brand names to build in the center of our city hippies and truck drivers i told you it was random in the 70s and 80s i worked for a chain a guy named bill galt and we developed a chain called good earth good earth was a high volume natural foods concept and bill felt the key was to offer fresh natural food and atmosphere that would be appealing to both hippies and truck drivers i should note that bill also ran for office in las vegas on an anti-gambling platform but in this case bill was right in des moines we have company presidents sitting next to tattooed artists we have musicians and construction workers eating in the same places side by side and everybody mixed together and i think that's a beautiful thing and that's been one of the great experiences about developing the restaurants in the gateway market is to watch the diversity that we've created through all these cultures i think partnerships are important personal partnerships business and public partnerships a personal partner needs to be invested in the work we do because creating a way out of nothing can be emotionally draining and it's very time consuming i have found that the government's your friend boy not an enemy and we have great city management here i think people should focus on designing projects to meet the city's needs as well as their own i recommend choosing your business partners according to whether or not you want to be chained to them when things don't work out there are an awful lot of guys who are great partners when things go well find a partner that's good at something and then trust them when they tell you what they think when george farmer came to ask me to be his partner he had a really specific vision paul likes numbers and he likes managing things george likes to cook and develop concepts and we both like making people happy and that's been one of my most successful partnerships right size the vision the des moines vision plan of the 90s was gigantic and it needed to be for that time your personal vision plan needs to be right sized for you small may mean less risk financially but maybe you don't want to be a cook dishwasher and host six nights a week the rent might be low but the location might be poor and everybody you know might be going in a certain direction but you might want to go the other way understand marketing the most expensive marketing is marketing that doesn't do anything we all talk too much about expensive versus what is effective and in the restaurant business we tend to play follow the leader if lots of restaurants advertise in a certain publication and a certain location then we all feel like it must be the right thing to do when i've been asked to look at businesses that aren't working accounting is always the number one problem but marketing is always right close behind it so my advice when it comes to marketing is think big think globally spend a lot of time thinking about what you want and who you want to reach and then consider spending more money than you ever thought that you might need to promotion the best promotion is getting involved in the community and the best part of that is that it feels good people want to support businesses who do good things and care about the larger hole our orchestrate properties maintain defined giving statements for each property that allow us to make donations in a consistent and routine fashion but still don't break the bank and support that business's current model at the orchestrate office i encourage all the team members to participate in the community in charities and different organizations on our time in our dime several of us serve on multiple boards in addition to this we've been involved in planning several events in the downtown area the western gateway al fresco dinner destination 10th street the craft brew fest chris diebel's been involved over the years in ingersoll live these things take a lot of resources out of our office and and out of our operations but we believe that investing in the greater whole is good philanthropy and good business don't plan on batting a thousand you need to know when to hold them and when to fold them but the contrary thought you need to carry in your head is that sometimes winning is staying in the ring longer than the challenges dreaming is good when combined with good planning if your dream is to open a restaurant and you're an accountant find a good partner who knows the restaurant business or budget for your education so what about the future of des moines some quick thoughts we i think we need to continue to build on this diversity thing i think it's working for us i think it's what makes us different than a lot of other towns and we should focus on it we should pursue sustainability find ways to make the things we use and the things we eat right here build new partnerships and find them in unexpected places i've recently partnered with the young guy who runs the produce department at gateway market and now we've got thousands of garlic plants and hundreds of chili peppers in our backyard that will eventually go into juano sullivan salsa which is made right here in des moines don't give up on growing retail everywhere in downtown um just before the recession i had this sense that we were going to start really being able to develop some nice retail it was the the notion of the first floor davis brown and the first floor of the temple there were some good opportunities and that dried up but i think that as the economy comes back we need to find ways to make the risk for retail acceptable and and see if that can grow wake up walnut the downtown community alliance is working on this but i think everybody who's in the area in the community should pay attention to it and get involved and contribute ideas to that think big with the two big opportunities which is the plex downtown the old convention complex and the ywa ca site i think we need to be creative and think no and remember it takes more than restaurants and big hotels to create the fabric that's brought us to the next level we can't wait for the next group of well-financed visionaries we need to continue this movement of dozens of small creative thinkers bringing forward a pool of exciting diversity the big project should address this movement and provide the infrastructure in the developments like the plex and the ywca finally two of the many lessons from the wizard of oz keep your eyes open on the path the lessons are in the journey believing that we have the heart the courage and the brains is the key to finding the way thank you