Tim Perry with More About What’s Coming to The Forum

Management is already running The Forum as if it’s Avalon. Starting with the basics like landscaping and security, but also the Friday Night Live music, new tenants are arriving like High Country Outfitters, the multi-family development on the town center side will likely start next summer, plus new businesses coming into a part of the 80,000 sq feet of office space. Learn more through our podcast with Tim Perry, Managing Partner of North American Properties.

Resources:

The Forum Website: https://theforumpeachtree.com
The Forum Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theforumptc

“We’ve been excited about the Forum for years, even though we just purchased it earlier this year. And (we’re) excited about working with Peachtree Corners because it’s such a great community.”

Tim perry

Timestamp (where to find it in the podcast):

[00:00:30] – Intro
[00:02:22] – North American Properties in The Community
[00:05:58] – New Types of Retail Coming
[00:08:48] – Breaking Ground on Residential
[00:11:00] – Plans for the Office Space
[00:13:49] – How the Economy Affects Real Estate
[00:22:57] – Making the Details Matter
[00:26:00] – Closing

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Podcast Transcript:

[00:00:30] Rico: Hi everyone, this is Rico Figliolini, host of Peachtree Corners Life. I appreciate you guys joining us. We have a great guest today, Tim Perry, managing partner of North American Properties. Hey, Tim, how are you?

[00:00:42] Tim: Doing great, Rico. How are you today?

[00:00:44] Rico: Good. Beautiful day, when we’re recording this live. Hopefully this will be an evening when people view it. Tim’s the managing partner of North American Properties, owners of as many people know the Forum now. But before we get into this interview, I just wanna say thank you to our corporate sponsor, EV Remodeling Inc. and Eli, the owner and resident of Peachtree Corners. They’ve been a great supporter of our journalism in the magazines and these podcasts. So just want to do a shout out to him. They do design-to-build and they’ll come in, remodel everything about your house inside and out. Done great work. He’s on Houzz if you’ve ever used that. Houzz.com. Check him out. Check him out at EVRemodelingInc.com as well. And for transparency’s sake, I also wanna say that the Forum is a supporter and advertiser in Peachtree Corners Magazine as well. So now that we’ve gotten that out of the way. We’ve been talking about the Forum, this stuff going on for probably six to eight months. So I’m glad that you’re on this podcast sharing with me a little bit about what’s gonna be going on over the next year or so. At this point, I think people are a little bit used to seeing stuff going on at the Forum, like the Friday Night Live music, some of the local bands you’re bringing in. Kind of neat. And I know Ted’s Montana Grill participates with popup bar set up there so people can actually go drink and enjoy some music. Across the way from Town Center on a Friday night. How’s that going? Now that you guys own everything, zoning has been approved and all that, how are you guys doing with that, all this so far?

[00:02:20] Tim: Well thanks for having me on today, Rico.

[00:02:22] Rico: Sure.

[00:02:22] Tim: We’ve been excited about the Forum for years, even though we just purchased it earlier this year. And excited about working with Peachtree Corners because it’s such a great community. Operationally, I mean, you can look down at our track record. In fact in gosh, 2011 when my predecessor and I, Mark when we bought Atlantic Station. These properties or the opportunity that is created by the lack of past investment is what we do. So it’s front loaded from an expense standpoint. You spend the first year or so, or more, really activating the property and spending the money to build that community connection. And then you have to build in the physical infrastructure you need to actually execute it longer term. So while we’re doing Friday Night Music and things now, we’re having to repurpose parking lots and streets and everything in order to do it, versus actually having the public realm. The lack of public realm at the Forum, like Avalon or Atlantic Station or others, it created the opportunity for us to bring the public realm there and have somewhere to host these in the future. So you just have to kind of plow through it and embrace the community. And that’s what leases space, and that’s what attracts the merchants, and that’s what attracts the restaurants that turn this into long term. So we’re running the Forum like it’s Avalon, even though the leasing has you know, trails certainly that merchandisers are showing that activation.

[00:03:43] Rico: Right. Yeah. And I think most people know at this point in Peachtree Corners traveling through the Forum, that there were as many as, I think 20 storefronts empty at one point. And of course, just also to be fair, there were people that were opposed to some of the zoning adjustments and stuff. But in the end, I mean, driving, creating, and keeping the way the Forum is by before you purchased it, just didn’t make business sense, right? Buying it, redeveloping it. I mean, you guys have a track record with Atlantic Station, Colony Square. You’ve done the Avalon from ground up in Alpharetta. And prior to us starting this podcast, we were talking like you mentioned, front loading that investment. Getting people used to, I mean, you guys supported really well, Light Up The Corners. And I think that’s a perfect example. Better than it’s been done before. Giving way more space to it than it was given by the prior owners of the Forum. Now I think that was a great first step that you guys gave. Just, it was a good experience, I think, for most people.

[00:04:46] Tim: Well, thank you. Yeah. We’re getting there for sure. And the additional zoning and all that we went through for the approvals for the public realm and the additional parking. All of those components really are gonna create the space where we can activate. And then the additional density, whether that’s filling up the office space that’s there, or it’s bringing 381 residents, or it’s bringing people in the hotel to the property. It’s not just the people that are there, it’s them and bringing their friends and bringing their family and their kids’ friends.

[00:05:16] Rico: Right.

[00:05:16] Tim: And then the community. And that coupled with having a great public space is what makes it all successful. And the retailers and the merchants are responding to our plan, which is very active on the north end and very active around the plaza. In front of Grace and Belk. And now it’s merchandising. It’s filling in the food, the beverage, the patios, and that retail run. Because ultimately successful retail all sort of has a track effect. You go up one side of the street, you come back down the other side of the street, yeah. If you get off that track, it’s why malls work, right? You go to a two story mall, you go down the mall and you go upstairs, you come back. That’s why when you see a third story in a mall, it’s almost always empty. There is a certain habit to how people engage with the property. And we want that to start and finish there in the plaza.

[00:05:58] Rico: Yeah, I get that too because, for example, my middle child, 24 years old, she goes to the Forum basically for Lulu Lemon, Ulta, and that’s about it. Once she gets there and she leaves. I mean, she doesn’t really eat there. Maybe she gets her, I don’t even know if she gets her eyelashes done there or not. But those are the two stores that she basically goes to. And then, but she loves Avalon. She goes there with her friends all the time. And they’ll stroll around after dinner and stuff. So I get that because her generation is not gonna be doing that track because there’s not enough. There’s not the right retail, I think. You could have enough retail, but if it’s not the right retail. So tell us a little bit about that. I mean, it’s not just retail, right? I mean you’re looking, I think, at also bringing entertainment of a sort, besides concert and music. But tell us a little bit about the type of retail that you’re starting to get besides Chopped and now I just saw High Country Outfitters is coming.

[00:06:56] Tim: High Country Outfitters is coming. We’ve got a brewery that’s looking at taking a spot. We have a distillery that’s looking at putting an onsite distillery there as well. As we know, we’ve got a food hall on the north end. LuLu Lemon is working to expand right in that location as well. And then it’s fortifying the tenants that are there. And then from the entertainment side, it’s not, there’s not a space to do anything that’s a really large format. There’s no theater, there’s no bowling alley type thing. But that, there’s a niche now, and I call it competitive socializing, right? And it’s been around forever. We just kind of gave it a name. And it’s bowling, it’s golf, it’s darts, it’s ax throwing. It’s all of these different things you can do. It’s pickle ball, it’s tennis, it’s corn hole leagues bringing all that into the mix, both from a tenant and an activation standpoint. People want to do it, I want to go out and I want to play a game or watch a game with my friends. So there’s a whole niche around this sort of competitive socialization of a retailer that’s coming as well. And then the soft goods piece follows. And the Forum’s always had the demographics and the density of the market to support it. That was the original reason it was built. And now it’s just putting in the newer, more emerging brands into the center and that kind of retail run. I’ve said this to you before, is you walk down one side, you work the track. You sort of get to where, maybe where Lulu is and you look down, you’re like, ah, there’s nothing else down there. And you turn around, right?

[00:08:18] Rico: Yes.

[00:08:18] Tim: You’ve gotta extend that track. So the improvements that are on the north end by the office are meant to pull you. Kind of go down and come back through. So that retail run will be built, but kind of get filled out soon.

[00:08:29] Rico: Yeah, interesting. Because I know when I go there and I want to park and I need to get something, it’s almost like, do I wanna go down that stretch because there’s, maybe I wanna get something at Jason’s Deli. But I have to go all the way down there for that and there’s nothing else along the way that would be of interest. Except for the chocolatier, because I’m a nut with that, but.

[00:08:47] Tim: Right.

[00:08:48] Rico: But yeah, I understand. And you’re right, that competitive piece, entertainment piece. I mean, it’s such a big thing now. I mean, you’re getting VR, XR type places coming where you can eat, drink, and go play. And that’s the attitude everyone, I think a lot of kids that grew up over the last two decades are adults now, right? They want to, everything’s a gamification of something. So they want to be able to be out there and enjoy themselves and do all that. And I know bringing like 381 apartments to the Forum itself is going to help with that. In fact, you know, what’s the timeline on that? I know for a different timelines on there. Any thought about when that breaks ground?

[00:09:30] Tim: Well, it’s really the residential that the city approved for us on both sides of 141, right? So that’s a lot of residents that are coming and pieces that are now going to connect the bridge and hopefully draw people back and forth. I know this weekend, is it a Prince cover band?

[00:09:44] Rico: Yes, I think so, yes.

[00:09:46] Tim: That there on the Town Green. Now, I’d love to see people parking on the Forum side and walking over. It should be a beautiful weekend, I think. So hopefully that works. But using that as a transit piece going back and forth. So it’s really the residents on both sides that fuel both sides, again, of the property. So we’re excited to have those. We’re excited to have the hotel and that just brings more people into it. But the gamification of everything is important. So next summer is roughly when we hope to begin the public realm improvements. And we want to start, we want to have those tenants open. The new tenants open, that will announce as we sign leases. New tenants open for the holidays in 24.

[00:10:25] Rico: 24, okay.

[00:10:26] Tim: Just building space or public realm, is not as, it’s not that time consuming. But once we get a space and you hand it over to a tenant, there’s still a four to six month process for a tenant to put their stuff in, and FF&E, and decorate, whatever else. So there’s that entire stretch, you kinda have to add onto the end of the landlord’s work with projects. And then the part with the multi-family side, being the east side of 141 can start as early as next summer. And then on the Forum side, that is probably a 2025.

[00:10:56] Rico: Alright.

[00:10:57] Tim: And the hotel may move more quickly than that

[00:11:00] Rico: Really? Okay. Getting back to a little bit about the office space, there’s about 80,000 square feet. I didn’t realize how much square feet there was of office space there. And most people don’t even think about that, like I said, unless they go into Innovative Help there, the dentist, Dr. Talley. Or unless they have a professional service they’re going to over there. But most people don’t even think about that. How is that? What plans do you have there? I don’t even know what the vacancy rate is right now. But what plans do you have there moving forward?

[00:11:29] Tim: We’ve signed our first lease. It’s a pediatric medical use, pediatric dental use. So we’ve got that. And the building there above Trader Joe’s, there’s three floors. It’s got a fair amount of medical space, which is great. It’s convenient, it’s embedded in the neighborhood. There’s nothing like taking your kid to the doctor and then going down to the chocolatier, right? For a little snack.

[00:11:48] Rico: Right.

[00:11:49] Tim: It’ll make you forget about that shot, right? So it’s a great place. It’s a great use for it. And then there’s, there’s a lot more space though above like Pottery Barn on the second floor. And previously, about half of that is leased and the other half was part of the Spa Sydell. You remember Spa Sydell?

[00:12:04] Rico: Right. Yes, yes.

[00:12:06] Tim: And so we’ve actually gutted that space and opened it up to use it as office rather, than a service provider. It was very chopped up. We were already talking with a tenant about that space. We’ve been talking to one tenant where we would’ve to move a bunch of people around that would take a lot more space than we even have. So demand in a mixed use environment for office is always really strong. And if you look at all the uses top to bottom, whether you’re a guest for a few hours because you’re there shopping or dining, or you’re a guest overnight in the hotel, or for a year, right?

[00:12:40] Rico: Right, right.

[00:12:41] Tim: As an apartment resident or for multi years as an office tenant, everyone wants the same thing. They want what’s outside their door. Not what’s inside their door. So, the retail, it pulls people through a retail and creates sale, which creates a longevity to those tenants. So when your daughter goes back, there’s always her favorite store where she’s gonna go and shop. Same with restaurants. She’s always going to have her favorite restaurant that’s going to be there. And for those who don’t know Grace is closing and rebranding and reopening. But the business itself sold. It wasn’t anything that we instigated. It was something we were told. It sold, and we’re really looking forward to working with the new owners there.

[00:13:20] Rico: Yeah, I think they’re the same owners of Stäge is what I understand. Or associated somehow with them.

[00:13:26] Tim: That’s correct, that’s correct.

[00:13:27] Rico: And I think it’s a French oriented restaurant. Somewhere along those lines, from what I understand.

[00:13:32] Tim: So we’re excited about that. And that’s such a great corner. You know, businesses evolve over time. We’re really happy to have a fresh face in that corner. With the Plaza, it’s gonna be such a key corner. Everybody parked in the deck and everyone going to and from cars. Everyone getting either car valet or coming to an event, it’s gonna be right outside their door.

[00:13:49] Rico: Yeah, they’re going to have a lot of value there, I’m sure for that. And I know Grace 1720, I mean, they’ve been there, they were there a long time. So it was, I think the owners just wanted to sell at that. I think they’ve gotten to that point, the original owners, I think. But that’s cool. So, people are looking at the economy right now, right? A little bit. They’re looking at some inflationary stuff. Who knows what’s gonna happen over the next 24 months or so. There’s so many people. And even the people that are supposedly experts have been getting it wrong, for a while now.

[00:14:19] Tim: Right.

[00:14:19] Rico: It seems. Yeltsin, I think just admitted that she was wrong a little bit about her predictions a year or two ago. How does that affect the Forum moving forward and stuff? Do you hear anything on that or is that even an issue at this point?

[00:14:32] Tim: Well we’re very fortunate to have a large institutional partner. And the rise in interest rates alone isn’t impacting the Forum because there’s no debt on it. So we’re blessed not to have that increasing cost as a detriment to our ability to execute on the plan. And because we’ve set out with a business plan to do all of this in closing, all of that was capitalized as part of what we’ve agreed to go forward and do. So there are still a lot of things to work through with the city. I mean as we said during the development. Entitlements aren’t designed right?

[00:15:07] Rico: Right.

[00:15:07] Tim: You still have to get through and spend the design dollars and the permitting and the approvals and everything with the community review and zoning, design review. So we’re working through that with the city right now on different components. I think from a tenancy standpoint, there’s definitely risk, right? There’s tenants, regardless of what they are, tend to swing sometimes strongly, one way or the other from let’s not do anything and wait to, oh my gosh, I’ve gotta do 200 new units across the country this year. I’ve gotta get going.

[00:15:36] Rico: Right.

[00:15:36] Tim: And what we’ve seen is some slow down. Not everyone’s leaning in to, expanding as fast as possible. But good location, good real estate, is fundamentally good real estate. So there may be locations for national tenants that aren’t moving forward, but something like a Forum, an Avalon or Avenue East Cobb or some of our other projects are not those. Just amount of interest, the amount of expansion. Especially at this point, rather than five years down the road when it’s probably more expensive to lease space there but there’s less of it. At this point, the real good real estate continues to lease. And the Forum, the Forum is catching that. There’s a flight to quality in almost all economic downturns. And that means office, right? You have a lot of options. I want to go the A location or the A property or the A product. And the Forum is the A location, the A product, in an A property. So it’s kind of all of the, checks all those boxes.

[00:16:34] Rico: Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, it really, within the city of Peachtree Corners, it’s actually the only A retail besides Town Center, right?

[00:16:41] Tim: Right.

[00:16:42] Rico: So if you’re coming to Peachtree Corners, I mean, this is the place to do it, I guess, right?

[00:16:46] Tim: Collectively with Town Center, that’s what creates the A location. That’s what creates if you’re talking about downtown Peachtree Corners. And that’s how we sell it, and that’s how everyone should think of this is downtown Peachtree Corners. This is my amenity. This is where we take our family. This is where we take our friends. This is where we go to spend some time. And now soft goods want critical mass, and there’s not critical mass at the Town Center side. So that’s where the Forum would be different than Town Center. And not compete directly. I mean, there’s still a need for that QSR and that Center on both sides.

[00:17:16] Rico: For sure. And I think as people, as I’ve spoken to people at business association meeting chambers and other business people. The economy may shift and do certain things, but that doesn’t mean every business is affected the same and equally by that. And I think you’re right. I mean, there are a lot of businesses taking this opportunity now. Because it makes sense to be able to do what they need to do. Because like, you’re right, five years from now, even if we get into a recession at some point within the next year or two. We come out of a recession. It’s not, businesses don’t stop, right? If they’re fundamentally a good business and they’ve planned out and they’ve budgeted out what they’re doing, they’re not going to stop.

[00:17:58] Tim: Right.

[00:17:58] Rico: They’re just gonna keep going because that makes sense. Unless it was done, unless that decision was done on bad principle, right?

[00:18:05] Tim: Quality and talent, right? I mean, companies want to, you’ve gotta keep your talent. Because there is a backside to this.

[00:18:11] Rico: Right.

[00:18:12] Tim: And you know, the most valuable commodity we all have is our time. Our time and our talent. So keeping it all together and staying the course. That’s the reason we only buy you know, really well located class A locations. Even if the property has fallen out of that classification, we can bring them back. And you look at Colony Square and Midtown, these are 50 year old buildings.

[00:18:30] Rico: Yes.

[00:18:31] Tim: But from an occupancy and from a leasing, from an occupancy and from a rental standpoint, they compete with the class A market. Just things, the products that are 10 years old, right? So it competes in that sector because of the quality of the location, the quality of the experience. The amenity downstairs.

[00:18:46] Rico: That’s right. I agree with that. I mean, before the rezoning there were people talking about, oh, do we want multifamily there? And what’s that going to do and stuff. And after, I guess some experts out there, like after you get three cycles of tenants, then it falls apart. And I look at that and you look at the apartments in Peachtree Corners, most of them are like garden apartments. We don’t have mid-rise apartment buildings in Peachtree Corners. It’s a whole different animal. And especially where it’s going to be located. It’s a whole different animal. It’s almost like when discussing, people would tell me, yeah, but then in seven years it’s going to be bad. And it’s like, what does that mean?

[00:19:24] Tim: Right.

[00:19:24] Rico: That means, if that happens, the whole downtown area is bad, is what you’re saying.

[00:19:28] Tim: And because where one goes the other follows. But we’re not gonna let that happen. You know, if you keep the street, if you keep the life. We say it all the time. We’re not leasing space, we’re leasing lifestyle. And that’s the difference between a garden apartment and this. You know, if somebody’s either need to live here because of something, then there’s a big wide market. I can live in a lot of different places. If there is a desire to live somewhere because I want to live that life. Then there are very few. And that’s where the resident profile is so different in a mixed use property. It’s older. It’s almost driven more by, well it is, it’s driven by their lifestyle. I want to go downstairs and have wine. I don’t want to cook. I want to go to the beach for two or three months at a time, but I still need to come up here and meet a client. Or just my doctor, my friends, my golf course are all here so I need that. And it’s not, that’s true in every market. We see it at Avalon all the time. Unless someone moves out and moves to the beach full time, they typically move into a town home or something that’s right around Avalon or downtown Alpharetta. And we have the same thing. Just last week, we had a grand opening, a grand reopening, a celebration of our redevelopment. Almost identical to the Forum called Birkdale Village. That’s up in Huntersville, North Carolina. Just north of Charlotte up on Lake Norman. Almost identical. I mean, if you go to BirkdaleVillage.com, and if you look at that. The stage, the sound, the concierge, it’s all going to look almost the same. So go check it out. In fact, it’s a beautiful property. We just opened it last week. And I was there and talking with someone who was attending. And they were a resident, they were in their fifties. They had a house at Hilton Head. They had sold their house across the street of the country club and were building a house in Bluffton. And they wanted a home base next to their doctor, their friends and their kids who lived in that park. But they wanted to lock and leave, and they wanted to be able to walk downstairs and sit outside on a beautiful day or what else and not drive. And not drive, right? And that’s the profile. And it’s very consistent when you get into these mixed use. I guess everyone is a resident by choice, because you can choose wherever you wanna live. But it’s really a renter by choice because they have an option of owning or buying.

[00:21:36] Rico: Oh yeah. One of my writers lives in downtown Duluth. Him and his wife saved quite a bit of money. He likes writing for me part-time in about stuff going on in Duluth. He just started and he lives right on, like right there in downtown.

[00:21:50] Tim: Right.

[00:21:51] Rico: And they rented it. They thought, let’s test out this. We could always go to a different rental place down the block if this one doesn’t work out. So they’re testing out stuff and they love living downtown. They just go down to the restaurants, they go to the concerts on the town green there in Duluth. It’s a beautiful area. You know, it’s a nice downtown, but that took a while to build up that downtown.

[00:22:12] Tim: Right. And we’ll see how the recession affects ownership because it’s more expensive to own. Which means there’s typically, you know, it’s kind of a slow down. And one thing has to reset. Either the price of homes have to come down or your interest rates have to come down. Either way, kind of supply, marketing. It kind of slows down a little bit. And I think that’ll create probably a net zero effect. People who stay in a resident, an apartment longer because they think they can get a deal on a home, they maybe willing to sell less. People still have to move.

[00:22:41] Rico: Right.

[00:22:41] Tim: Or they may say, you know what, we’re going to hang out here and wait for the recession to blow over so I can get a lower rate and afford more home than what I may be able to afford now. So it’s gonna be interesting, but it’s the same kind of tenant, resident profile in both those cases.

[00:22:57] Rico: Yeah, and I think also the way that you all look at, just the look of a place also. I mean, I could see the difference in even the plantings of the flowers when you guys first took over. Whereas before it almost looked like, they just did minimal planting and then later it looks like, wow, this, did they build that up? Or is this just more flowers there? Just the little things like that to me because I notice those things make a difference. Because that tells me they’re paying attention to the detail.

[00:23:26] Tim: Yeah.

[00:23:26] Rico: High Country even, their facade is a lot different than the other places.

[00:23:31] Tim: Right.

[00:23:31] Rico: The other stores there.

[00:23:33] Tim: You eat with your eyes, right?

[00:23:34] Rico: Yeah, I mean.

[00:23:35] Tim: We say it all the time. That’s kind of a big evolution. Tenants, these neutral colors and just slap a sign up on the building.

[00:23:43] Rico: Yeah.

[00:23:44] Tim: It all looks the same. That’s not the current market. I mean, if you look at Avalon, that’s, we broke ground at Avalon in 2012, I mean ten years ago. Look at all those different storefronts. And now each of those. I guess it was ’13, so almost ten years ago, nine years ago. Each of those storefronts as you put new tenants in will express itself. And that’s a really important part of creating that eat with your eyes, that experience.

[00:24:09] Rico: Yeah.

[00:24:10] Tim: I like to say, I’m glad to hear you say you notice those things. If everything is right, you don’t notice anything, right?

[00:24:16] Rico: Right.

[00:24:17] Tim: You walk through it, and it feels good. I don’t know why it feels good. I can’t say it feels good because of the flowers or the lights or the music. It just feels good. But if you walk through and it feels bad, you know exactly why it feels bad. And so, those things, people notice when something’s wrong. And when it’s right, they don’t tend to. They just, it just feels good. So we like to hear people notice when things are wrong, because that means we can go and attack it and fix it. We’ve been doing that ever since we closed in March. Glad to hear it makes a difference. I mean it’s gum on the sidewalks to flowers, to planting, to music, to lighting. To consistent uniforms. Even with outside vendor, like the custodial team. It’s that one vision, one shared understanding of what excellence means and a strive to create it.

[00:25:05] Rico: Yeah, I’ve noticed that. I’ve noticed the uniforms. I noticed security, more security. They’re dressed in a certain way also. Which is good. I mean, people want to feel safe as well, right? To where they go.

[00:25:17] Tim: How many real estate owners have a grooming standards in their operating manuals, right? You know? So not a lot.

[00:25:24] Rico: Yeah. No, no. And you have apparently.

[00:25:27] Tim: And we have. Right. We have to say everything matters, right? Good enough, never good enough, so.

[00:25:32] Rico: Yes. No, I love the idea of Disney World, Crown Plaza. The idea that when people, the way you say when people step on the property, you want people to feel welcomed and safe and know that they’re gonna be taken care of. So it’s all good.

[00:25:47] Tim: We want them to come back, right? We want them to come back. We want people to say, this is my Forum. It’s not mine, it’s yours. It’s yours because you want to come use it. And if there’s something wrong with your property, your Forum, tell us what it is.

[00:25:59] Rico: Right.

[00:25:59] Tim: We’ll fix it.

[00:26:00] Rico: Cool. Well, we’ve been talking to Tim Perry, managing partner of North American Properties. Just a lot going on there and I know there’s a lot more going on behind the scenes that you probably can’t talk about. Retail partners that may be coming in that slowly your team will be sharing who they are at some point. Anything else you wanna tell us, Tim, about things moving forward that you’d like to share that we haven’t touched upon?

[00:26:24] Tim: We’re gonna start our holiday activation this year. So November 18th is actually our tree lighting and our holiday parties. We’ll have an event that day. I want everyone to come out, park on both sides, walk across the bridge, use it, come over. And we really look forward to getting on the true design right? I mean, not just the renderings and things people have seen in the papers, but the plans ready so we can get this thing moving next year. But we’re looking forward to the holidays this year. We’re looking forward to some great new announcements. Keep coming out to the events. That’s the best way to stay engaged with what’s going on with the property. And in 2024 we’re all gonna have a plaza and a whole list of events and new breweries and wineries and distilleries and retailers to enjoy. And it seems like a long time on the front end, two years from now, we’re gonna go, wow, it seems like yesterday. But we’re really big on doing what we say we’re gonna do. And we’ve been saying what we’re gonna do now we’re gonna go do it.

[00:27:20] Rico: Yeah, time flies. Seems like it’s going to take a while, but by the time we get there, you know, it’ll be like, wow. This is the way it’s gonna look, okay.

[00:27:28] Tim: Right, right.

[00:27:29] Rico: So cool. Anyone that wants to know more about what’s going on at the Forum, you could check, follow the social media, the Forum at Peachtree Corners. Right, the Forum at Peachtree Corners. They have a new logo, obviously, I think listeners should know a bit more about that. So follow them on Facebook as well. They have a newsletter, I believe. I think you all have a newsletter that can be signed up on, on your website.

[00:27:51] Tim: You can sign up on the website for email blasts and newsletters and that kind of stuff. And follow our social media. We have a social media coordinator on every property as well as marketing, event planning, and all that kinda stuff. So we’re really active on social media. Follow it, that’s the best way to know what’s going on. That or the webpage. That’s both from physically what’s going on as well as events and what’s coming, what’s going on there.

[00:28:12] Rico: Right.

[00:28:13] Tim: Follow us, I look forward to engaging there more.

[00:28:15] Rico: Yeah, lots of music on Friday night, so keep that going too. And it’s great to see the businesses participating like Ted’s Montana Grill and stuff on doing that popup for drinks. And of course follow us, Peachtree Corners Magazine and our social media. Subscribe to our newsletter, you can find that on our website at LivingInPeachtreeCorners.com because we’re always covering what’s going on here in the city of Peachtree Corners. Check out our magazine, our latest issue, somewhere around here, is coming out and it’s the pets issue. We are currently working on Southwest Gwinnett Magazine in our 19 under 19 edition. 19 kids that you should be looking out for, things that they’re doing. And in the Peachtree Corners magazine, we’ll be doing the faces of Peachtree Corners in the next issue. And so some top leaders and community people that are doing great things here in the city, business people and others. So check us out, follow the Forum. Tim, I appreciate, you’re a busy guy. You have lots going on all over the country, I’m sure. But I appreciate you spending the time with me this morning to be able to do this podcast interview.

[00:29:23] Tim: Absolutely. We travel a lot, but this is home. Two years from now, we’re gonna drive through home and we’re gonna be proud, Rico.

[00:29:28] Rico: Yeah, you live up in Johns Creek, so I mean, right? You’re right close to us. Cool. So everyone, thank you again. Tim, stay with me for a minute. I just wanna say thank you again to EV Remodeling Inc. for being a sponsor, a corporate sponsor, supporting our journalism. The publication, as well as the podcast that we do. Thanks, Eli. Check them out. They do great work. Eli lives here in the community. This is a Peachtree Corners based business. Lots of remodeling work they’ve done. Some actually pretty nice stuff that they’ve done, so check them out. EVRemodelingInc.com. Thanks again, Tim.

[00:30:04] Tim: Thank you.