🎧 #200: The Story of Bedrock, Detroit, and NexusCon 2026

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Episode 200 is a conversation with James Dice and Brad Bonavida from Nexus Labs and Amanda Gibb and Russ Holton from Bedrock.

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Summary

This episode takes listeners inside Bedrock to explore how one of Detroit’s largest real estate organizations is evolving its building operations and technology strategy across a complex portfolio. Amanda Gibb and Russ Holton share how maintenance, engineering, energy, data, and technology are coming together to create a more connected and efficient operation. They also dive into Bedrock’s emerging AI program and the challenges of standardizing technology across different buildings and systems. Finally, the conversation looks ahead to NexusCon 2026 in Detroit, including the historic Hudson’s site, Bedrock’s involvement, and some of the unique experiences planned for attendees. It’s part behind-the-scenes look at Bedrock, part preview of NexusCon, and a celebration of the city hosting it all.

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Mentions and Links

1. Join us at NexusCon: https://www.nexuslabs.online/nexuscon-2026 
2. Subscribe to the Connected Buildings Briefing: https://www.nexuslabs.online/
3. Listen to the NexusCon 2026 Town Hall: https://lnkd.in/p/gBUTXCHz

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Highlights

Introduction (0:00)

Rapid fire context-setting (4:45)

The growth of the operations program (11:06)

Amanda and the keynote (29:41

NexusCon, the venue, and Detroit (34:58)

Carve Outs (42:19)

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Music credits: There Is A Reality by Common Tiger—licensed under an Music Vine Limited Pro Standard License ID: S800157-16073.

Full transcript

Note: transcript was created using an imperfect machine learning tool and lightly edited by a human (so you can get the gist). Please forgive errors!

Brad Bonavida: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome back to the Nexus Podcast, where we talk about connected buildings and the playbooks behind them. This episode is for facility managers, operational technology managers, and data and integration nerds who are focused on how to improve operational efficiency across a vast portfolio of buildings.

Today, we're digging into Bedrock's operations program, their strategic technology initiatives, and their involvement in Nexus Con 2026. But really, this podcast is for all Nexus Labs fans because you'll not only learn how Bedrock is improving operations, but you're also gonna learn why Nexus Con 2026 in Detroit is a can't miss event.

And part of making Nexus Con great is making it fun, so we'll be discussing some of the extracurriculars we have planned to help you get the most out of your three days at Nexus Con. Uh, quick note, if you're trying to stay on top of this space without wading through the vendor noise, we write a short newsletter called The Connected Buildings Briefing.

It's about a five-minute breakdown of what's worth paying attention to. It's read by over 9,000 people. It goes out every other [00:01:00] Wednesday. You can grab, uh, access to it in the show notes. My name is Brad Bonavita. I'm the head of product at Nexus Labs, and I'm joined by James Dice, founder and CEO of Nexus.

James, how you doing?

James Dice: Good, Brad. Great intro. Thank you. This is episode number 200, right? Is that right? Shh. We're

Brad Bonavida: not talking about that yet.

James Dice: I'm just, I'm so excited about it. Sorry, I couldn't hold, I couldn't hold my breath.

Brad Bonavida: We also have with us Amanda Gibb, who is the CTO at Bedrock. Amanda, welcome.

Amanda Gibb: Thank you.

Happy to be here on the 200th episode. There should be some confetti or something coming down, I think.

Brad Bonavida: That's right. And finally, we have Russ Holton, who is the vice president of engineering systems at Bedrock. Russ, how you doing?

Russ Holton: Good. Thanks for having me.

Brad Bonavida: All right. So buckle up and join as we get into Bedrock's building program and Nexus Con 2026, and special, special little sequence here that I wanted to bring in is this is the 200th episode.

Good call, James, which is a very big deal. So I have a very short pop quiz for you, James, that you didn't know [00:02:00] was coming. Uh, question number one: your first episode was on March 22nd, 2020. Who was your guest in that first episode?

James Dice: Um, Nicholas Wern.

Brad Bonavida: That's correct.

James Dice: I haven't talked to him-

Brad Bonavida: And you- ...

James Dice: since then, I don't think.

I don't know what he's up to. He's out there in the world. He's, he's in

Brad Bonavida: Sweden. You guys-- You talked about the three stages of smart building technology. Okay, the questions get a little harder. So question number two. Okay. Episode number 100, who do you think the guest was?

James Dice: I have no, I have no clue.

Brad Bonavida: It was Tegan Keel of KPMG and Sinu Panda of Prescriptive Data, turned into Nantum, turned into JCI.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And then the last question. Since you didn't get that one, I don't like your chances on this one, but- ... what is the first episode that Rosie joined you on? What number? I'll give you, I'll give you plus or minus five on each side.

James Dice: All right. Um, I'm gonna say it's in, like, the 130s.

Brad Bonavida: 130 exactly, is that your guess?[00:03:00]

James Dice: 130s. So if I get plus or minus five, I'll say 135.

Brad Bonavida: You nailed it. It's 138.

James Dice: Oh,

Brad Bonavida: all right. Okay. So two for three. That's actually better than... I thought you wrote one for three. That's solid. That's solid. So that's good. But anyway, congratulations. It's been really fun to be a part of it, and that's very impressive.

I can't remember the stat I saw. I sh- probably should have found it before, but something like 98% of podcasts fail after episode, like, 12 or something. So, um, it's impressive that it's gone this far, and it's a testament to how much people enjoy hearing what you talk about with the smart buildings, uh, industry.

So good for

James Dice: you. Can I share my favorite story? When we got to 100, um, someone told me that they had listened to all 100 episodes twice through, and I thought about that being, you know, if it's roughly an hour each, some of them are 90 minutes plus, that, that amount of time investment is just an honor to have everyone's ears for that long, which is really fun.

Brad Bonavida: Yeah. Yeah. Would you say... Last thing on this and we can move on, but would you say [00:04:00] that the podcast is really what kind of started Nexus Labs for you? I mean, I guess the newsletter was right at the beginning too, right? Were those the two things?

James Dice: Well, they're intertwined. So the podcast started when I felt like I was interviewing people for the newsletter, but then you can't-- When you do an interview, you can't get everything into the, the essay.

And so I felt like, "Oh, I have to start publishing these interviews." And so they, they kind of melded together for me. But yeah, I think it was the beginning of the community.

Brad Bonavida: That's cool. All right. Well, we'll have another pop quiz on episode 300, so start studying. Don't forget

Amanda Gibb: this.

Brad Bonavida: Yeah, exactly. This is gonna be one of the questions.

I won't forget. You have Amanda.

James Dice: I won't

Brad Bonavida: forget. Yeah. No, this is a special episode, though, with having you guys on board, so it's a good segue. Uh- It is ... I like to do just very rapid fire context settings, so don't go into depth here. Just some direct answers for our audience. But first, um, and either of you can chime in here, who is Bedrock?

If I've never heard of them, what, what are you guys?

Amanda Gibb: Yeah. So Bedrock started from [00:05:00] a need to buy commercial real estate downtown Detroit for Rocket Mortgage. That was really the beginning of our, uh, company. Um, and it has expanded throughout downtown Detroit and into Cleveland and, uh, it's kind of like a Cinderella story, so I was really happy to be a little part of it.

Brad Bonavida: That's right. And, and how many buildings approximately do you have, or how do you measure your portfolio size?

Amanda Gibb: Let's see. It's, it's hard to measure because we have a lot of, uh, buildings all over, but we're in about 125, I would say, properties in Detroit, and 15 to 20-ish in Cleveland- Okay ... including all the land and development projects we have going on.

Yeah.

Brad Bonavida: And how would you explain what you do in your role as CTO in a sentence or two?

Amanda Gibb: Oh, man. Um, so I would say, you know, I have the traditional, um, help desk, um, applications, uh, data analytics, that kind of stuff. But the couple of areas that are [00:06:00] new for me here are the controls. I've never worked for a commercial real estate company that actually had a dedicated controls team, so it was, uh, mind-blowing, to be honest, that we had something like that.

And then we also have a network team. Again, a lot of these things are traditionally outsourced, so to have teams that do this, you know, dedicated is, it's

Brad Bonavida: pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. And Russ is part of that group of people who do this dedicated. Russ, how would you describe your role briefly?

Russ Holton: My role briefly is we keep the buildings running seamlessly, efficiently.

Uh, we make sure environmental controls meet the Bedrock... We call it the Bedrock experience, right? So we don't want our tenants to notice anything out of place. Uh, we don't want them to notice lighting shades that are, are not adequate or temperatures that are out of range or doors popping open due to over-pressurization.

So that's, that's what my team does. We make sure that everything, when a tenant or a visitor comes into our properties, they just come in and just enjoy the architecture of these [00:07:00] cool buildings and they don't notice the environmental controls

Amanda Gibb: The other thing I will say that Russ's team does, which is super cool because we have so many buildings downtown Detroit, is the lighting scenes, the exterior lighting scenes that are programmed for, you know, certain holidays or certain events going on, you know, the Lions colors or, you know, the holidays, that kind of stuff.

So things that, like, you don't necessarily always think of for automation controls, but it's lighting up the whole city.

Brad Bonavida: That's right.

Russ Holton: Yeah. So if you ever watch, uh, Monday Night Football, 'cause the Lions get on that quite often now because they're actually very good- ... uh, you'll see they do the overhead sky views.

And I would say 90% of the buildings that they show are Bedrock properties, where we have the RGBW lighting scenes for the Lions games, um, Tigers, Red Wings, whatever. We follow the national schedule for all the scenes.

Brad Bonavida: Cool. That's great. Uh, and then my last rapid-fire question is about, like, really why it's special to have you guys on the 200th episode is because you're a [00:08:00] part of Nexus Con, and Nexus Con is happening in the department at Hudson's, which is connected to Hudson's Tower.

Can either of you answer what those two buildings mean to you or what they are and why they're special?

Amanda Gibb: Yeah. I'm from Chicago, so a lot of other people have more connected stories, um, that I have heard. You know, even friends of mine, they used to come downtown Detroit, you know, th- 30 years ago, 40 years ago, and that was, like, a big event.

It was like, you know, uh, going to the Macy's parade, like, back in the '50s, '60s. Like, it was a thing. You got all dressed up. You took a taxi downtown. It was, like, a big deal. And there are these iconic things that happened there year after year. Especially around the holidays, they would decorate the s- the f- storefront windows, you know, and you would see all this very cool stuff.

You would see, um... They had certain bears that, you know, they sold only at this location. So it was a really iconic department store, um, that we purchased after it was [00:09:00] unfortunately demolished. If we had owned it before they demolished it, I can guarantee we wouldn't have demolished it and s- and turned it into something really cool.

But, you know, we, we bought that property, and, uh, out of that came, uh, really two iconic buildings that have changed, you know, the skyline here, uh, which is also something that you don't often get a chance to be a part of, so.

Russ Holton: And to add to that, so for me, growing up in Metro Detroit, I used to go to the Hudson's, uh, department store with my grandmother and grandfather back in the '70s and early '80s before it shut down, and it would be, um, an event like the Christmas story, like that kid getting pushed down the slide, right?

They'd set it up like that, so it was a, you know, a multi-story department store that you could buy anything in. But what's really cool about it is I watched that place die, and it go vacant, and then get demolished. Um, but then I hired into Bedrock in 2016, and that was the first project they threw at me was review and design drawings, working with Earl Happel, [00:10:00] uh, doing the control scheme for the property.

And I've, I've gone through many reiterations of the property where it went from close to a 70-story tower down to what it is currently, 46. So it's, it's gone through a lot of reiterations, and where we landed fits. It just looks great when you see it. It's just beautiful, and I'm very proud that it's here in Detroit.

I'm proud that it's the first high-rise built in almost 40 or 50 years here in Detroit, and I'm proud that it's opened up, and we're gonna have Nexus Con there. It's an amazing thing.

Brad Bonavida: Yeah. We're, we're excited about it too. I... This will be the third Nexus Con, and the last two were at a hotel in the suburbs of Denver, and I just remember multiple conversations that would happen about, like, I don't know, the, the, the temperature in the hotel or, like, the lighting, and, like, all the conversations are these educational sessions about buildings, but we weren't talking about the building that we were in.

And this one, we are gonna be talking about the building that we're in and having those building owners there, so that's pretty cool, like, bringing [00:11:00] it all together as one thing. All right. Uh, so with that, let's dive a little bit more into Bedrock's Bedrock's story as a building owner 'cause we consider you guys to have a pretty mature smart buildings or connected buildings program, and we wanna talk about that aspect of it.

So, um, and James, I... You probably have good questions here too, so feel free to jump in wherever you want. But, uh, maybe just to kick it off, where, where would you say the Connected Buildings program started when you guys got involved with Bedrock, and how is, how have you seen it grown in terms of the technology you guys are using for operations?

Russ Holton: Okay, I'll take that one, Amanda. So when I came to Bedrock in 2016, um, we had at that time right around nine or 10 buildings that we had spun up or Bedrock had spun up with the Bedrock BMS network, and they were doing the, uh, uh, Niagara infrastructure. Um, from that point on, we've gone from nine to 10 buildings to almost 70 right now that are on the, uh, smart building platform that we've chosen.

Um, so what we've [00:12:00] done is every property we buy in Detroit, they're usually close to 80 to 100 years old. Um, we have to go in, do a complete core and shell gut of the building. Um, redo every, every mechanical aspect of the building: electrical, plumbing, um, windows, you know, exterior facades. Uh, we have Requirements with the De- Detroit Historical Society, we have to keep some of the finishes in to get the historical credits, right?

So that's where the challenge comes in. So you have to buy systems that actually will fit into small spaces sometimes. That's where VRF and, you know, cassette units come into play. But, um, yeah, so the strategy was these properties we bought, they were all siloed, right? So you could have three or four different operating systems in there at the time, like Johnson or Trane, whatever it may be.

Uh, Dan Gilbert, our owner, took the initiative to wanna standardize. Um, when people were letting teams like mine go in Detroit, so the hospitals and everybody else, they were cutting onpr- on-site [00:13:00] plumbers and HVAC guys and control teams. They were getting rid of all those. Dan Gilbert did the exact opposite.

He said, "I'm gonna change that, and we're gonna bring these teams on staff." So, uh, Bedrock is not only a real estate developer, they are an owner/operator. They run their own, um, janitorial services team. They have a field services team that does general maintenance. They have their own engineering teams. We have our own property management teams.

Um, and we have our controls team, including a technology team that does data governance, uh, networks, software, applications. So we're full-fledged. We do everything in-house. We do lean on contractors to support us in certain areas, but for Bedrock, the, the standard has been to build the teams out here to run and maintain everything through the internal teams to include design, through the design phase, the turnover phase, and then through the, um, management phase of the properties for as long as we own them.

Brad Bonavida: Awesome. So you just mentioned a ton of different teams that come [00:14:00] together to make this work, very cross-departmental. Can you talk about how you guys think about that and bringing all those teams into, like, one program for connected buildings?

Russ Holton: Yeah. So my business area, I touch all teams. Asset-- We have an, we have asset management account.

We got a lot. I left some teams out because, uh, they're those teams you don't think about on a daily basis, but we do have capital plan and strategy with our asset management teams. So, uh, I check boxes with all the teams. So I work with the development team, I work with asset management, I work with, uh, capital planning, I work with accounting, I work with engineering, I work with technology, I work with property management.

So my team touches all aspects 'cause we touch all areas of the building properties. So how Bedrock accomplishes that is it's just, it's strategic, it's collaborative. I can't really put it into words, but it's like I've been here 10 years, so I pretty much know, I'd say, almost everyone in the company, and we just mesh.

It's almost, uh, I don't know, I'd say it's like a family [00:15:00] here. Everybody just knows what everybody does, and we know who to reach out to and who to connect with, right? You know who could potentially be someone who can help you get something approved or move forward, you know who could be a roadblock, so you kind of just navigate the, uh, the streams here and just go, go that route.

Anything you want to add to that, Amanda?

Amanda Gibb: Yeah. I mean, I will say I worked in commercial real estate for a long time, like many decades, and, uh, I would say this place is different in some ways, not different in other ways. Like with every commercial real estate company, especially if you're an owner/operator and you do everything, you're vertically integrated, there are gonna be groups that are like running in a direction and, "Oh, I forgot to pull them," and, "Oh, I forgot," you know, "I picked this tile that is gonna break every time people walk over it, so property management's m- pissed off."

You know, that kind of stuff, like that does happen, right? But we do operate like, like a small company, and just like make decisions, get things done, and kind of move forward, [00:16:00] and try to keep everyone as connected as you can. It doesn't always happen, right? It happens at every single company where something got missed, uh, but we just together like identify it, let's figure out how to fix it, and then move forward.

Brad Bonavida: Cool. Um, one more question I wanted to ask on just kind of the growth of operations in general is w- you guys obviously invest a lot into what we call connected buildings. Like you, you invest a lot of time and money and resources. What business outcomes are you guys watching that prove that that investment is worth it?

Is it, is it about the energy saved? Is it about, um, a better tenant experience, which, you know, k- helps you keep tenants, uh, you know, happy? Or what is it all about that makes it all worth it to do all this?

Russ Holton: Uh, the primary goal of BedRock is the tenant experience. We do, um, work hard to have, uh, energy efficiency, you know, scores, high scores.

We're, you know, enrolled in Energy Star. We're enrolled in LEED cer- certifications. We are part of the, uh, District [00:17:00] 2030 for Detroit. So my team and I, we work very hard to keep our metrics, you know, for our, our energy consumption down, right? So that is part of the thing. But, uh, when the company was started, the That was the thing that was different about Bedrock.

We, we prioritize tenant comfort over energy savings. Uh, it's still kind of that way now. We have standards in place where we have, you know, set points, uh, for heating, cooling, go minimum 68, maximum 74, right? That's our threshold. Uh, we do that for our tenants. We give them adjustability so they actually are comfortable in their private offices or, uh, common areas.

But, um, yeah, with Bedrock it's more about the tenant experience. It's about what they come in, what they see. 'Cause let's, let's be real, we are not, uh, the cheapest for rent in Detroit, but we offer a Class A real estate portfolio. Um, you know, we're in the hospitality area. We have events. Um, we have, um, restaurants, retail.

We're doing [00:18:00] a, um, small hospital here in... Well, I guess you'd call it a clinic, the Life Sciences Center with Vamp. So we're touching all areas of a lot of residential. Uh, so when I came to Bedrock initially, we only did remodels. We bought buildings and rebuilt them, rehabbed them. Um, then probably two years after that we started becoming ground up developments, new developments.

So we started building a bunch of... An entire residential block called City Modern, which I believe now is seven buildings over there, um, fully leased out. Then we went to the Book Tower where you have that on the wall behind you, Nexus guy. That's Book Tower, right?

Brad Bonavida: That's right. Check it out.

Russ Holton: So that's a multi-use building, so that's actually commercial, that's residential, not...

Commercial, roost, um, hotel, residential, uh, retail, restaurant. That building has it all. That is the, the footprint that Bedrock's been doing lately, is have a multi-use buildings, right? Instead of just putting a building up for one purpose where you may not rent the entire building out, they're multi-purposing the building to make sure that we hit our, our leasing [00:19:00] requirements, and it's been successful.

Brad Bonavida: Yeah.

Amanda Gibb: I would also add that, you know, tenant comfort, if you don't have the connected building platform, would cost you so much that you could... You, you couldn't afford it. Do you know what I mean? So you almost have to have something like this in place to automate the starts and the stops and all the temperature stuff, like just from that perspective, the lighting stuff, all that stuff.

Imagine like having to keep that on all the time and the utility costs that that, you know, would incur if you didn't have this type of program over, over top of it also. But it allows us to be able to do that kind of tenant experience without, um, putting us, you know, underwater in terms of money.

James Dice: Can you guys talk about the, the development program you guys mentioned where we're gonna be in one of those new buildings that you guys have sprung up from the ground, how you focus on getting that construction process to work for you so that you're handed over, Amanda, in your case, a [00:20:00] network that meets your standards, and Russ, in your case, a, you know, technology stack that meets your standards that sits on the network.

How do you influence that design? 'Cause, 'cause that's one thing with Nexus Con this year, that's the piece that we're adding in, is how those really, like, construction project managers can influence the construction process more so that what they get handed is, is more useful to the operations.

Amanda Gibb: Yeah. I mean, that's, that's critical, getting in at the very beginning stages without having the things that are important to a network team or a controls team value engineered out.

Everyone loves that term value engineered, what really that means, just cut it out and it doesn't work kind of a thing. Um, you really do have to have buy-in from the development team that this is not something that is expendable. This isn't a nice-to-have. This is part of our, um, building standards and, you know, there are certain things that, like, we won't negotiate on.

So we can, you know, try to do things more cost efficiently, but [00:21:00] we won't, like, have a building that doesn't have, um, doesn't meet our network standards or our control standards in Russ's case.

Russ Holton: Yeah, so how it works for, for me and my business area, so we have what's called the Bedrock smart specification.

In that specification, we have, um, standardized the control systems that we allow in our buildings. We've standardized Niagara as our base core infrastructure. We've standardized Codelabs as our platform provider. We, we've gone into detail to standardize, uh, temperature sensors, variable frequency drives, VRF systems, pump...

domestic booster pump systems, all the way down to the color coding of the wire from the exterior cabling to the, um, conductors inside for what we use for thermostats, for our BACnet, for everything, right? So this is non-negotiable. So when we start the development phase, and this is at the beginning when we start working with, uh, design firms to build out our properties and the engineering teams, um, we actually circulate the Bedrock smart [00:22:00] standard, uh, smart, smart building specification.

We circulate it. They incorporate it into the job drawings. We have our approved control contractors in there that are, uh, approved, vetted that do work for Bedrock. We don't allow just anybody to come to our buildings. So these are circulated. They reach out to our, our contractors that we have in place.

They know our standards. Um, they get incorporated into the drawing sets, and that's how we ensure that all of our buildings come back pretty much a cookie-cutter standardized building. So whether you're in the Hudson's Tower or you're in, uh, Book Tower, or you're in the building I'm sitting, First National Building, my control engineers or a contractor, anybody, can go to any control panel, JACE panel, they all look the same.

They're all color-coded the same. We have standardized, uh, templating for, uh, input-output tagging. So we've standardized that. We've standardized everything down to the bare bones of the project. I mean, we're very critical in what we do. Um, our contractors know that. We also have my team who project manages the projects.

We make sure that things are being installed properly. [00:23:00] Codelabs is our MSI So they're handling getting our integration checklist to include electrical sub-metering, controllers, lighting systems, fire systems, anything that's gonna be integrated into our smart building stack, uh, code manages that, that for us as an MSI.

We, we issue our own IP addresses, um, MAC IDs, all that stuff, that's all coming from BedRock. We assign that. So our buildings are down to the detail. We're, we're just everything's in sync throughout the entire portfolio, and that's the way we've done it and we're gonna continue to do it.

James Dice: And the, the reason I, that I gather that you guys do this is, like, a couple different reasons.

One is you want the data in your command and control center, which we're gonna ask, uh, you about in just a second. The second is you've, you've designed that tenant experience to be very specific, and you want that to be standardized across all of your buildings. And the third is the... you've designed your maintenance processes to need these certain a- attributes of, of each of the different [00:24:00] equipment.

Is that, is that generally, like, the why behind the specifications?

Russ Holton: Yes. Yes, that and if you've, and I'm sure you have, you've been in buildings where you could have a, a high rise that's 30 or 40 stories tall, and every floor has a different type of control system. A different... It's installed differently.

It's all different. It can be very confusing, complicated. That's where you get all these multiple, you know, workstations within the building. You have connectivity issues. So yes, we standardized to get rid of all that 'cause that's what we inherited when we bought buildings. So we made it simple. It's like keep it simple stupid.

That's how we've done this. Um, it's actually complicated and expensive, but, um, our owner sees the value in it, so that's why we continue to do it, right? You could do it cheaper ways for sure, but you wouldn't have the, uh, smart building portfolio that I have currently in Detroit and Cleveland

Brad Bonavida: My, my first, uh, live look into the connected buildings that you guys have created is as we're planning Nexus Con, I'm talking to the, the AV team at the venue quite a bit, [00:25:00] and it's, you know, asking them questions about how-- can we have a microphone over here and over there, and can we stream from this room to that room, and, and what about the speakers over here?

And the answer is like, you can do anything. Like, it's all simple, possible. Like, you can split everything every way. It's just like very clear testament to how much you guys have put into this building, just from the AV perspective of like how much it can do for its, its occupants, which is gonna be us and the Nexus Con attendees in, in a month.

Uh, Russ, maybe we should dive into that command and control center a little bit that you just mentioned. Uh, what, what is that?

Russ Holton: So yeah, we have a, uh... We call it mission control. So it's a, uh, it's our office upstairs on the fifth floor of FNB, where my team sits, the BedRock controls team. So every, uh, control engineer in the, in-- on my team has a workstation, where they come in in the morning and they, uh, they log into their computers, they do a quick overview of all the buildings throughout the portfolio to make sure that, uh, systems are running properly, that there's no critical [00:26:00] alarms.

Um, so they do that. Uh, then they, they also do support and service of the portfolio. So we don't, uh, rely on control contractors to make repairs for us. My team is actually a full-fledged control contractor within BedRock, so we actually do our own controller replacements, VAV replacements. We do, um, in-house installations for air handlers, VAVs, uh, variable frequency drives.

Whatever you can think a control contractor does, we'll do in-house, um, that we are capable to do, 'cause we're, we're limited six members on the team, seven with me. So we, you know, we have a limitation on what we can do. All new developments or retrofits, we hire that out to our union contractors. Detroit's a union town, so we have, uh, you know, we have to comply with some of the construction standards around here, which is good too.

We can't-- like, obviously, my team can't do a full-fledged remod. Um, we also are now working exclusively on a code platform. I have one of my control engineers that, that will actually [00:27:00] spin up floors and air handlers or whatever for small remods. We don't need to hire code for that part of it now. So through our, through our mission control center, we can touch all of our buildings, Detroit and Cleveland.

We also do that from our cell phones, from our laptops, from our homes. We work remote certain days a week, so we support this portfolio twenty-four/seven, three sixty-five. That's part of the deal with my team and, uh, we don't rely on contractors for that support. That's all done in-house, which again affects the BedRock experience.

So instead of if you have a VAV controller that it's failed, right? So the typical way that that's handled by a lot of real estate companies is Their engineering team responds to it, then they have to call a contractor. They have to wait a day or two to get a contractor out, maybe three or four depending.

Contractor may not have the part, so they have to order the part, come back. So you could be, you know, a week to 10 days with a system that's not working properly, right? We keep critical inventory at BedRock. So for all of our air handlers, our VAV controllers, [00:28:00] chillers, whatever it may be, I have spare controllers in stock in here.

So if we, if we have a failure, we spin it up real quick, program it, change it out. Our current response time to tickets is right around 15 minutes to answer it. Um, our completion time is usually within four hours in the day. So we're, we're spinning up really quick, and that's that tenant experience. And no one knows our buildings better than us, right?

We've been into every nook and cranny in these things. So that's, that's how we operate the, the Mission Control Center. They're not just sitting in the room all day long. My team is actually actively out working, installing projects. Like currently right now, we're installing a gas detection system at, uh, One Campus Mars.

We're installing leak detection systems at 1001 Woodward. So we're doing things to enhance our, our smart building technology to reduce our insurance rates with leak detection for, you know, floods and things like that. We're constantly working. Um, sometimes I don't know how we get it all done, but we pull it off all the time.

Brad Bonavida: Yeah. Four-hour response rate. Damn, that's, that's serious right there. Russ-

Russ Holton: Yeah,

Brad Bonavida: that's

Russ Holton: start to complete, by the way. [00:29:00]

Brad Bonavida: Yeah. That's, it's impressive. That's why you're hard to get ahold of whenever I'm calling you is because you're always doing all these emergencies. You

Russ Holton: know it.

Brad Bonavida: So Russ is gonna be talking at Nexus Con about like, you're gonna be in the construction track in the Intent Intact session talking about a lot of the first half of what you just mentioned, which is like these specifications and what you've built to make the next building just like the rest of them and fit into this whole thing.

And then also with the last part you were talking about with the Mission Control Center, we're gonna be doing some VIP building tour, building owner tours where some people will be able to get in and kind of see how, how your setup compares to them and, and, you know, share notes and all those things. So that's really cool.

Um, yeah. So Amanda, let's pivot a little bit to what you're doing. You mentioned you're, as many CTOs probably are, in the midst of standing up your guys' AI program. W- what does that mean your day-to-day life looks like right now?

Amanda Gibb: Yeah. So I feel like, um, especially in commercial real estate conferences, they've been talking about AI for like a decade, [00:30:00] like it's a real thing, but it's not.

It hadn't been a real thing. But it is now a real thing, right? This is the, uh, you know, the next coming of the internet, and we're all trying to figure out how do we deal with it? How do we harness it? How do we do it responsibly? What rules do we put in place? You know, you're trying to allow people to be creative and use a secure enterprise tool to do what they need to do, um, but still keep some control around it, right?

So the robot doesn't go crazy and start, you know, taking over the world type thing. But, um, really for us, you know- In, in the past, you know, AI, AI, and I usually would kind of roll my eyes at like robots on stages doing things, but the reality is that it is here, you know what I mean? And we have to figure out, um, how we're gonna use it in practical situations.

So like, you can dream up AI to do anything, but really what we're looking to do is see how it fits into our [00:31:00] overall ecosystem. So you've got applications that do things, you've got data analytics that do things. Sometimes you have like robot processing automation that does things, and like where does AI fit into, like this ecosystem?

So for us, it's really identifying for, uh, starting with use cases where we have, you know, bad, maybe inefficient manual processes that are just annoying to deal with, and like let's reduce some annoyance that we have not, you know, had a chance or an opportunity to deal with because, you know, maybe it's not a huge problem for many people, not enough to like spin up a whole new software to deal with it.

These are the, the areas where you can potentially leverage, you know, whatever your AI tool of choice is, um, but a secure one so that you can actually s- you know, start to see some efficiencies out of it. So it's, you know, the policies, it's how much budget are we gonna give to this, these things? [00:32:00] 'Cause there's the licensing component that you give to people who are using it, but then you've got your credits, you know, when you've got agents working on their own, like how much money are you really gonna give to, to a program like this to be able to, again, show it's always cost benefit, right?

Just like in Russ's world where you say, "I wanna replace this HVAC system," you have to show that you're gonna make your money back or you're in, at, at the long run after some period of time, um, saving the company money. So that's where we're at.

James Dice: How are you thinking about the giving the AI like context?

So we've mentioned all these different ways in which you guys have all this standardized, all these standardized systems, all this standardized data. How are you then enabling whatever AI stack you end up using to then use that context?

Amanda Gibb: Yeah. So what we're, uh, again, trying to figure out is some of these...

So there's the large-- I'm no AI expert, I just wanna just point this out right now. But there's the [00:33:00] large language models, right, where it just goes out to the internet or, or if you have like we are a Microsoft shop, so we use Copilot, goes to all of your Microsoft, you know, tools and it, you know, comes up with an answer.

Um, so what we're working on now is migrating especially a lot of our data that we have, um, in our, uh, the backend of our Power BI models onto Fabric. Um, and that being some amount of the context that you can give, like they call it, I think like a deep language model. So you're not saying, "Go look at every, uh, you know, publication out there ever in the history of the world," you say, "This is the task."

You know, it's, uh, BOMA standards and how do you, you know, where do you measure from the middle of the wall or the exterior of the wall or, you know, there are all these things that like if you actually read the BOMA standards, you would wanna poke your eyes out because it's really long and it's very complicated.

These AI, right, can read through that very quickly and summarize and then, you know, use that as a reference point with other [00:34:00] data. So you put the standards with your drawings and you ask it, "What would be the usable area if I put a wall up that's this thick?" You know what I mean? You can get down to like real use cases, but you, you can't just do that, right, with, without, with everything out there, right?

You don't know what's good or what's bad. So you create a model where you're saying, "This is the, this is the reference data and the context that I want you to use when we're asking these questions," and then continue to enhance that to make it better.

James Dice: I don't think Brad has told you this yet, Amanda, but we're planning on grouping you in a closed door room with all of your other commercial real estate CTOs and technology people.

Um, so I'm sure you guys can have a good discussion about this- I'm sure ... behind. I'm sure we

Amanda Gibb: can.

James Dice: Yep.

Russ Holton: I like how they commit you on a live podcast so you- Yeah, right ... you can't, you can't back out now.

Brad Bonavida: Is that allowed? I don't know. Spea- speaking of committing people on live podcasts- Uh-oh ... uh, two of the people here, Amanda and James, are gonna be giving the opening [00:35:00] keynote at Nexus Con, and I, I will preface that I know you guys haven't had a, had a ton of time yet to build it, but you got two brilliant minds, so I know it's gonna come together.

W- what do you think? Where, where's this gonna go? James, maybe you start. What are your... I know you've, you know, spun the wheels a little bit on it, but what do you guys think you're gonna talk about? What

James Dice: are you gonna share? Well, I think we should let everyone know that I'm not planning on going like full sci-fi like I did last year.

Um- I think we'll-

Brad Bonavida: 30% of the audience is super disappointed that you just said that

James Dice: I know, I know, I know. Sorry. No one cancel their flights or their plans. I'm not planning on weaving together like some sci-fi universe with smart buildings this year. Um, uh, yeah, I think we'll talk about Detroit and like what technology means, uh, for the Detroit story and, and make sure that the people that are, you know, sitting there in that building understand like the transformation that it's gone through and, and how that mirrors, like what we've heard in our research is that mirrors the transformation happening in so many other downtown areas throughout, uh, North [00:36:00] America.

And so, um, I know that's broad, but we'll have to like save the details until, until they get there.

Amanda Gibb: Yeah. I'll also just add, um, I would say a little bit of what we're gonna go into is kind of like what I experienced coming, you know, in my career, you know, I've worked in Chicago and Los Angeles and New York, and when I got a phone call saying, "We have this great opportunity for you and you're perfect for it," I was like, "Okay, cool.

Let's..." They're like, "It's in Detroit." And I was like, "What? Detroit?" What? And I was like, "Isn't that a scary town? Isn't that, you know, whatever?" Um, they're like, "Well, not anymore." And I was like, "Mm, I don't know." And then I came here and I was like, "You were not kidding." Like, I, you know, if you've never been here, you really can't imagine the transformation.

I couldn't anyways. Um, I was just like, yeah, they're probably just kind of, you know, full of it and there's maybe lipstick on a pig situation going on, but it's, it's amazing. And so a lot of people ask me like, "Oh my God, why would you move, you know, from [00:37:00] LA to here?" And I was like, "To be honest, this is my fa- favorite place to live, uh, shockingly enough."

So yeah, it's a, it's a very cool, a cool story.

James Dice: That was the same experience that we had, um- From the idea of it and then coming out and seeing and spending time. I stayed at the, the Book Tower and, you know, walked down the street and met with you guys la- last year, and it, it's just like, oh my God, I love being in this, in this downtown area.

So I think if anyone's skeptical out there, we've said this on many podcasts over the last year, just, like, trust us.

Amanda Gibb: The other thing that is really cool is, um, like, unlike a lot of commercial real estate companies that are just for profit, right? That's been my experience. Commercial real estate, that's usually what people are in it for, and that's not really, like, the, where our company came from.

That's not why we were created and that sort of stuff. So to see buildings that have architecture from the early 1900s but [00:38:00] have been completely redone on the inside and are working office buildings, residential hotels, event spaces, it just doesn't happen. It just doesn't. In any city for any company I've ever worked at, you, you don't see, you know, the ornate, uh, you know, architecture that, like, costs a lot of money to save.

You know, we will take parts of the building down, restore them, and then put them back up, you know, as we're building the building back, and, like, most commercial real estate companies won't do that. It just costs too much money, and it's something I've never seen before, so

Brad Bonavida: That's so cool. You, you guys clearly have a lot of, uh, missions within the company that are beyond just profit, you know, with that and as well as, um, just, just your guys' interest in collaborating in Nexus Con.

Like, you guys are being the example of a building owner who is here to share and to learn from other building owners so that, like, you know, as the tide comes in, all ships rise. You guys can all learn how to run things more efficiently, learn what works, what doesn't work. [00:39:00] The, the lessons learned is kind of the, the key thing that's gonna be here, and you guys are kinda leading the way there.

W- maybe one more question on Detroit that I have is just if, if you guys could tell someone who's never been to Detroit one thing that they should know about Detroit or think about Detroit, what would that be?

Amanda Gibb: I'll tell you one thing that I learned that didn't realize, right? I've always lived in big cities, and you wanna go to a baseball game or a football game or a hockey game, and you're going out here and you're going out here.

Like, you come downtown Detroit and, like, everything is within walking distance. And I would tell people it's like living in a big city, but in a s- you know, a small area. It's like I've just never lived in a city like this, so to be able to have access to, like... They just have everything and it's, it's kind of crazy.

Russ Holton: Yeah. I w- I would add onto that and say you have sports towns, um, all over the country, right? But Detroit is truly a sports town. So we have a downtown core where within, [00:40:00] I mean, a five-minute walk you have the Little Caesars Arena, you've got Ford Field, you've got Comerica Park, uh, you've got the Detroit Pistons playing in Little Caesars too.

So all of our ma- our major sporting teams are here in Detroit, and this place, when games are, are coming, whether it's the Wings, the Lions, the Tigers, Pistons, right around noon, sometimes earlier, this town is hopping even during the week. So Detroit has a very, um, loyal fan base, even though our teams don't win it q- quite often, championships.

But our teams are very, uh, our, our fans are very loyal, our fans are very accommodating. The people of Detroit are actually I think what I love the most because everybody's very friendly. It's a very nice town. Um, you can walk down the street and have conversations with people. There's just, there's nothing to worry about, nothing to fear, right?

Every city has its areas that are still like an urban blight. Detroit has that, right? That are not on the downtown core that they're working [00:41:00] to, uh, restore. But for the downtown core from the New Center area or, you know, down by the Fisher Building all the way down Woodward to the riverfront, the, the city's amazing.

Get on the QLine and you just... You've got the bedrock part of town, which is essentially, you know, from, uh MLK Drive down to the riverfront, but then there's more. You've got more developments going down further, like Code Labs is building a new office down towards the New Center area. That area's cr- uh, hopping, too.

Restaurants, bars, you name it. We've got Wayne State University. So the city in general gets a, uh, a bad rap based on history. Yes, in the '70s, '60s, '80s was a little rough, but the last 20 years has been an amazing resurgence in this city, and if you haven't been, you have to come see it 'cause there's so much to do here.

Brad Bonavida: Yep. And, and if, if any of those things were going over your head 'cause you're not familiar with Detroit, we, we are doing these walking tours. I won't get into it because we just did a [00:42:00] town hall, and we'll put a link to that in the show notes where you can learn all these logistical things about Nexus Con.

But you'll be able to walk d- and have this free guided tour if you're, uh, if you're an attendee, where you can learn more about the city, which is pretty cool.

James Dice: Can we do carve-outs? 'Cause mine's, mine's related to all this.

Brad Bonavida: Let's do it. Let's move to carve-outs. James, you go first.

James Dice: All right. Mine is this mug that I just pulled off the shelf here.

Do... Russ and Manda, do you know what this rug, this mug represents?

Russ Holton: No.

Brad Bonavida: Feel like you gotta hold it closer.

Russ Holton: Looks like a Monday morning for most people.

James Dice: Yeah.

Russ Holton: Crying, crying. D-O-C-R.

Brad Bonavida: If you're listening, it's, it's a green I that has four tears coming out of it.

James Dice: It, yeah- Yeah, I know what that is ... and, and the, and the initials or the acronym is D-O-C-R.

So it stands for Dessert Oasis Coffee Roasters, and it's likely one of your guys' tenants. Um, it is... I'm, a, I'm a pour-over coffee snob, and these guys make the best [00:43:00] coffee in Detroit. I haven't had all the coffee s- places in Detroit, but I'm just gonna say.

Russ Holton: Desert Oasis.

James Dice: Well, so, so yeah, you would think it's called Desert Oasis-

because that is, but

Russ Holton: that's- That's what I've called it forever.

James Dice: Yeah, I know. I know. When I first met you, Russ, when I first met you, you corrected me, and I didn't- Oh, yeah ... know you well enough to tell you that you're wrong, but it is Dessert- It is Dessert Oasis. That's how it's spelled.

Russ Holton: Oh. Okay.

James Dice: Um, and they do have good desserts in there, but, but I would go for the co- for the pour-overs.

They have a pour-over menu- this long, and you can buy like a $15 cup of coffee there, but you don't have to. Like, that's the like most reserve, you know, status beans. But it is walking distance from the venue, just like we're saying, and, uh, that's, that's my tip for, for everyone coming in to Detroit.

Russ Holton: I think I know who took you there.

James Dice: Um, no. To- It's independent. Independent.

Russ Holton: Really? Yeah. Okay, 'cause that, that's, uh, Eddie and Richard's favorite place [00:44:00] too.

James Dice: Yeah. So Eddie, um, from Codelabs- Yep ... him and I, um, accidentally met up there on one morning. He go- he starts every morning there, and I will start every morning there. It's just great, great coffee shop.

Brad Bonavida: Yeah. Awesome. All right. Uh, Amanda, do you wanna go next with your carve-out?

Amanda Gibb: Um, I will just say it's not my carve-out, but related to that, when I moved here, I discovered something called the salt bagel. They have really good bagels here also, which I'm like, we're not New York, but we have good bagels somehow.

But, um, another thing to try, salt bagels. Um, I would say what I have going on right now is I have a 14-year-old daughter who is going back to school here in Detroit. We don't start until after Labor Day. So- Mm ... every other town I've ever lived in, it's a mid-August start. And because this is a very outdoorsy, um, state, which I also did not know, like they go all the way through, summer goes through, um, Labor Day.

So I'm [00:45:00] get- uh, registering her for school and, you know, getting all the school supplies for freshman year, so.

Brad Bonavida: Great. Uh, I'll go quick and Russ will close us out. So mine's, uh, not Detroit related, but it's buildings related. I, I purchased a new house with my wife last week and we closed, and we have a really old dog who has to go to the bathroom all the time, and it's very annoying- That sounds like

Russ Holton: me.

Brad Bonavida: Except, except I think you take, you need less direction to make it happen. Like, you can open doors and have thumbs and stuff like that.

Russ Holton: True.

Brad Bonavida: So we, we really need a dog door and I'm just like terr- I'm, I'm doing so much research. I'm terrified of the first moment of cutting a hole through our new house to put that in.

But it's on my, it's on my to-do list and I, I gotta, I gotta start cutting holes in the walls pretty soon.

Amanda Gibb: Yeah. I've done it a few times. Have you? Yeah. Uh, s-

Brad Bonavida: seriously, I might have to chat with you and like- Yeah. ... some lessons learned before I get into that. Okay. Maybe an educational session at Nexus Con about dog [00:46:00] door installation.

There you go. I don't know.

Amanda Gibb: Measure twice, cut once.

Brad Bonavida: Yeah. Measure 100 times. All right, Russ, what do you got?

Russ Holton: So my carve out is, as I've, uh, gained years in wisdom and life, I seem to like to spend more of my time with family and friends at my house. You know, we... On the lake, on the water, we tend to like spend just hours out there hanging out, just talking, chatting, you know, riding jet skis.

It's like, it's almost like a weekend thing now where I have family over all the time or, uh, friends. So it's a, it's a good time. I've learned to calm down as I've gotten older, relax, enjoy things, just sit back and, you know, watch family and friends enjoy life. And, uh, that's been like one of the, the most, um, stress-relieving things ever that I've done, is just to chill out and just soak up every minute 'cause time is short in life, you know?

Brad Bonavida: That's beautiful. And that's the second in a row, uh, [00:47:00]gratefulness-focused carve-out that we've had. We had one in the last episode, which was really good too. Good. So there you go. Look at, there's the good side of humanity. All right. Mm-hmm. Well, uh, let's wrap. Super excited to see you guys both in just over one month.

Um, and excited to see everyone who's listening there too. Uh, thanks a lot. It's gonna be a lot of fun.

Rosy Khalife: Okay, friends. Thank you for listening to this episode. As we continue to grow our global community of change makers, we need your help. For the next couple of months, we're challenging our listeners to share a link to their favorite Nexus episode on LinkedIn with a short post about why you listen. It would really, really help us out.

Make sure to tag us in the post so we can see it. Have a good one.

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