Beachwood, Ohio / To hear Steve Kimmelman tell it, the one thing a successful developer has to be is a good listener. Not necessarily a good listener to accomplished academics, management gurus, or even rock-star business executives on steak and scotch-soaked book tours. Although Kimmelman is open minded enough to know that he can learn from anyone, including such potentially know-it-all types, what he really knows he has to do is listen to the people who are looking for a little peace and quiet.
And 25 years after he first started listening to folks like that, he sits at the helm of one of the most successful apartment development and management companies in the Midwest.
On a recent cloudy afternoon in Cleveland, Kimmelman, the CEO of apartment home developer Redwood Living, reflected on the conversations he had more than two decades ago with apartment dwellers he knew, “What I heard, loud and clear, was that people were tired of noisy neighbors. Their lives were negatively impacted by the guy upstairs stomping around and the downstairs neighbors who played loud music. They wanted peace and quiet.”
Steve Kimmelman himself carried his own history of apartment living, where what he wanted was a restful sanctuary but what he got was frustration instead. “What I heard, from everyone I knew, is that instead of having the potential hassle of upstairs and downstairs neighbors, what they wanted their own apartment space that felt like a single family home.” So Kimmelman had an idea, why not build single-story apartments? Each with its own private attached garage? Isn’t that what single-family homes offer?
And at this point it was fortunate for all future Redwood residents that Kimmelman decided to not listen—to those who said he could never make such a business model work. He might have heard that he’d go bankrupt, maybe even end up in a crowded high rise apartment, covering his ears with pillows just to block out the noise. Then in the morning he’d have to walk a mile through the snow to his parking lot, instead of just stepping into his private attached garage. But he didn’t listen.
Instead Kimmelman, a Cleveland State University grad and CPA, started investigating the idea that the economics of less dense apartment home communities could work, and that successful development didn’t require maximizing the number of units per acre. And although privately-held Redwood Living won’t share exactly how the model works, the proof is in the rapidly growing Redwood portfolio.
Kimmelman and his partners currently operate more than three dozen communities throughout Ohio, Michigan and Indiana, and communities are underway in Kentucky and the Carolinas. Kimmelman says Iowa is on the horizon and Tennessee may not be too far behind. And it all has to do with listening, and responding, and forging ahead when you think an idea makes sense, despite what conventional wisdom might be.
Steve Kimmelman is not a man fooled by his own success, “I’m not some kind of housing genius. What I’ve learned is that by listening to what people want, instead of forcing them to accept what I as a developer might want to give them, a company like Redwood Living can be successful.”
And that’s one bit of business advice that’s on the level.
About Redwood Living:
Redwood Living is the premier developer of single-story apartment homes in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana. We are soon to grow into Kentucky, the Carolinas and Iowa. We started in 1991 and have grown into a fully integrated development and management company for multi-family housing.
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