Commercial Horizons Partners Paul Klister, Bob And Jeff Weyers Cut A Path For Development From Green Bay To Appleton
You might say it all started at a tailgate party. Jeff and Bob Weyers bumped into an old friend from Marquette University in the parking lot at Super Bowl XXXII in San Diego in 1998. The Green Bay Packers were playing the Denver Broncos, and Paul Klister and his wife were out of beer.
"They recognized me from years past, and we started gabbing," Bob recalls. "They recognized that we had a lot of beer and they had none. We started talking at our little tailgate party and Paul said he had purchased some land in Appleton. He wondered if we wanted to partner up."
What came out of that little tailgate would change the landscape on the southeast side of Appleton. Back home in Wisconsin, Paul and Bob met with Bob's brother, Jeff, and the three teamed up to put Home Depot across Highway 441 from the new Wal-Mart. In the last few years they've built strip centers, retail stores and office buildings throughout that Highway 441/County KK intersection. Recently they locked up plans to build an Office Max and Best Buy next to Home Depot. They lured Lowe's to a major development in Manitowoc, and expect to introduce the national home improvement store to new customers elsewhere in the region this year.
Since the three partners acquired a small real estate firm called Commercial Horizons, Inc. on Jan. 1, 2000, they have developed some $300 million/2,000,000 sq ft in retail and office properties in Appleton, Green Bay and Manitowoc, as well as individual retail projects in locations nationwide. As investors outside of real estate, they're also part owners in as many as 20 regional companies through their private equity investment firm, Capital Connection, LLC.
"They're very insightful business people, very honest, easy to deal with," says Bob Atwell, president of Nicolet Bank in Green Bay and a friend of the Weyers'. "I think they do extremely well in real estate, they deal very well with national companies and bring a level of experience here that not too many developers have."
The principals of Commercial Horizons are straight shooters, says Peter Hensler, economic development manager for the city of Appleton.
"They're reliable and they do what they say they're going to do," adds Hensler, who was a city alderman when the trio worked out tax incremental finance deals with the city of Appleton as they developed their plans. "They follow through on their commitments and the agreements they make with us (the city). It's been a positive relationship, but it's been a relationship that has had give and take we've contributed to their success, as they've contributed to our success."
In the conference room at Commercial Horizons' Green Bay office on AMS Court, Jeff gestures to the many photos of retail centers and office buildings that line the walls: Buffalo Wild Wings, Gander Mountain, Advance Auto Parts and many others. On the edge of his chair, Jeff, in a casual shirt and slacks, checks his watch. He's waiting to hear whether a lease will be signed with a "major retailer" to take a space next to Home Depot and Office Max in southeast Appleton.
He gets up and thumbs through some artists' renderings that lean against the wall. These, he says, are for the Washington Street office building now under construction on the Fox River in Green Bay. The site of the new Nicolet Bank, as well as offices for Aon, Commercial Horizons plans to move into the fourth floor of the $12 million, 81,000- square-foot building this fall.
Meanwhile, the Appleton office for Commercial Horizons will also move this fall, out of the Landmark Staffing building on East College Avenue into a new, 22,000-square-foot, two-story building they will also lease to the Employment Resource Group just west of Wal-Mart, on a new street to be called Destination Drive.
Careers Launched in Law
Bob and Jeff, who's dad, Ron Weyers, founded Wisconsin Employers Insurance Company (later, Employers Health Insurance; now Humana) and also founded American Medical Security, never really expected to find themselves in the real estate development business.
"If you had asked us, at the time, we probably thought we would have been involved in the health-insurance business," Jeff says with a chuckle that says he doesn't believe that himself.
For a time, real estate development seemed the farthest career from their minds. Jeff, who earned his law degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has a bachelor of science degree in business administration/finance from Marquette, worked as a merger-acquisition lawyer in Chicago for about four years. Bob, who earned his undergraduate degree in business administration/finance and his MBA from Marquette in 1998, worked for AT&T in Milwaukee after college. The brothers teamed up in a few business ventures in the early 1990s, first leasing slot machines to Indian gaming casinos. Then they ran a franchise company called the CD Exchange, which they built to 50 locations before selling to Grow Biz, a Minneapolis company. In the mid-'90s, they owned Executive Air; they constructed new hangars and gave the place a facelift before selling it in the late 1990s.
Ron Weyers, who retired in 1996, had dabbled in real estate and with the family, owns the Regency Center and the Lombardi Center in Green Bay. The brothers had taken on some of that responsibility and familiarized themselves with commercial real estate before Paul approached them about a certain deal with Home Depot in Appleton.
"We grew up with a great entrepreneurial spirit," says Bob. "My dad always took risks. He bet the farm on many occasions his dad was a farmer, he grew up on a farm, went to the army, came back and tried to sell everything from pots and pans to vacuum cleaners. He sold insurance, and before you know it he was a selfmade guy."
With their father's success, the Weyers brothers humbly admit they had a leg up in business. But outside of a loan to start their first business which they paid back in six months it wasn't financial help that gave them that boost, Jeff says.
"The major way he helped was by opening doors," Jeff says. "He had a network out there that we were able to tie into. So even though we were young guys getting started, we had the ability to get in front of people for 15 minutes to make our pitch. We got to talk to people at a much higher level then we normally would have. They felt they would never be left high and dry."
There's the perception out there that the Weyers brothers started with a lot of wealth, says Atwell.
"But my personal opinion is, the wealth they had from their father Ron, more than anything, was that he is a great mentor and resource and example of a how a business should be run. In my opinion, that's the treasure that's been given to them."
Mini Golf Holds Prime Spots
While the Weyers brothers explored their various business ventures, Paul, who says he "always had a very strong interest in real estate," had developed several small sports parks in Wisconsin, Minnesota and New Mexico. His intent was not to be a "puttputt king," but rather, he sought parcels of land that seemed located in strategic locations, ripe for development. This idea hit him as he played miniature golf in Minnesota, when he was in graduate school at the Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul.
"My wife and I were playing mini golf at a dumpy little miniature golf course that was on a great piece of property," he recalls. "I looked around and said, 'There's 100 people here, and they all paid five bucks. There's only one person working here, and all it takes is some putters and balls you can keep using what a great way to hold a piece of real estate!'" Sure enough, a developer soon replaced the sports park with a pizza restaurant.
While practicing as a personal-injury lawyer in Appleton (his practice later merged with the firm of Robinson, Peterson, Berk & Cross), Paul identified a prime parcel of farmland fronting East College Avenue and bought it, not long after the Highway 441 ramp opened.
"When I bought it, it was not zoned commercial, it was zoned agricultural," Paul recalls. "But when 441 went in, a lightbulb went on: Hello! you're at a major interchange here. Some day people are going to want to put stuff here."
He started a business with cash flow that could "carry the weight of the land, with the idea that there would be an exit strategy at some point." With the help of friends, Paul rolled up his sleeves and physically built much of what is now Badger Sports Park (he had plenty of experience in physical labor; he helped his dad, a bricklayer, among other odd jobs). Then he built three similar parks in Minnesota and others in Madison, Shawano and Roswell, N.M. (where the go-cart supplier was located). "Worst case scenario," Paul says, "is something happens to the business and it goes out, we're still left with a really nice piece of real estate."
Living and working in Appleton, Paul kept an eye open to new developments. When he heard Continental Properties planned to build a Wal-Mart Supercenter on East Calumet Street and a Home Depot was to locate next door, he secured the option to buy land across the street. Then he met Bob and Jeff.
"I told them about a project I was working on, and they asked if they could be investors and I said absolutely," Paul recalls.
They bought Commercial Horizons, which had managed some of the properties Bob and Jeff owned, and shed the third-party property management responsibilities the original owners had taken on. Jeff took on the administrative duties, Paul focused on the nitty-gritty of their development projects and Bob threw his sales savvy into making deals.
Wooing Home Depot
As principals in their new company, Commercial Horizons, they bought the land Paul was eyeing on the southwest corner of 441 and KK and cooked up a plan to develop it. They persuaded Home Depot that spot was more attractive than the lot it planned to build on next to Wal-Mart, then they bought the lot Home Depot gave up and geared up to develop that, too. Because the property was in the city of Appleton and the towns of Buchanan and Harrison, and it straddled two counties, Calumet and Outagamie, they faced an obstacle course of municipal challenges. They worked fast.
"To this day," Paul says, "I understand that is the fastest Home Depot from start to finish" that has ever been developed. They struck a deal in late 1999 and went to work on the roads and related infrastructure. By May 1, 2000, they turned the pad over to Home Depot to break ground for the store. "We made some ridiculous promises of delivery we actually put our tail on the line."
With the city of Appleton, Commercial Horizons struck a deal for a tax incremental financing district to develop the infrastructure throughout the development. He credits city officials for their cooperation and praises their high standards for buildings and landscaping. But overall, the going was tough, Paul recalls. He showed up at all the municipal meetings and public hearings on the project.
"We had a miserable time with the neighbors on that deal," he says. "Going through planning and everything, it took months of getting crucified. I got absolutely bloodied. We worked very closely with the neighborhood and the city to protect the residential area. We had a boundary and a buffer between the residential and commercial area. I had done some miniature golf courses, batting cages and go-cart parks, but nothing to this scale, where you're dealing with nationals. But for whatever reason, I've always had a stomach for it. The challenge is what drives me, more than anything."
In his Appleton office, Paul looks relaxed in his Commercial Horizons polo shirt and jeans and is in an upbeat mood. As it turns out, he says, the phone call Jeff had been waiting on the other day put another feather in their cap: they got the thumbs up from Best Buy, which agreed to locate in the space with Home Depot, next to the Office Max now under construction in southeast Appleton. He is driven by the art of the deal.
"I love to put together the puzzle," he says. "To identify something and figure out, absolutely, what it takes to get it done. It is unquestionably, the challenge."
Building Relationships
Strewn about the conference table sit blueprints for more projects. Among those in the works now are the Harbor Town Center project on the Highway 43 corridor in Manitowoc, which Commercial Horizons is developing with the help of Manitowoc lawyer Bob Gregorski. Along with some partners from Oshkosh, they are also in control of the redevelopment of the former Sam's Club in Grand Chute near the Fox River Mall, where they expect to draw a major discount retailer soon.
Paul, Jeff and Bob credit their many business partners with their success. In particular, they credit their deals with national tenants to Curt Mauer, who introduced them to such retailers as Home Depot, Gander Mountain, Buffalo Wild Wings, Tires Plus and more.
Their new building on the Fox River in Green Bay would not have been possible without the cooperation of the city of Green Bay, Jeff says. The Nicolet Bank building they're working on, along with the boardwalk design and condo project by Vetter Denk Properties of Milwaukee together will have an impact on the downtown, he adds.
"The combination of those three - wow! What a catalyst," Jeff says. "There's definitely momentum going in downtown Green Bay right now. It's Green Bay taking affirmative steps to make its riverfront an inviting place. My biggest fear with the waterfront redevelopment was that they would do half measure. That was my biggest fear, because half measure is doomed to fail. But what they approved is not half measure. They went all the way, and that's what it's going to take."
Commercial Horizons aims high in its own dealings as well. Half of what the partners now control financially includes investments in a private equity investment firm, Capital Connection, LLC. Bob spearheads the work of the firm, which provides financial support and resources to entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial management teams in search of capital for new ventures, management buyouts, recapitalizations and strategic acquisitions. Among the companies they're invested in: Coating Excellence International, an extrusion coating operation in Wrightstown; National Graphic Solutions, a specialty printing company in Appleton; and Fox Valley Metal Tech, a metal fabricator in Ashwaubenon.
"The more success you have, the more people call you with opportunities," Bob says. "You get that reputation that you can get deals done, and then the phone rings, or through our contacts and our networking in Green Bay and Appleton, we kind of know what companies are doing what, who's growing, who's expanding, who's moving. You still have to deliver what you promise. We're not overpromising or under-delivering, and that's why I think we continue to get the phone calls."
Having a network of influential people as friends and acquaintances helps tremendously, he adds. It doesn't hurt that these three men enjoy each other's company, either. They all like to travel and often do so together, sometimes with their families, whether to Florida or Aruba or Mexico. In the spring, they went to the Brett Favre Forward Foundation golf outing in Mississippi. In June, they joined a group of friends for a week-long fishing trip in northern Saskatchewan, Canada.
Working for themselves, they enjoy flexible schedules that allow family time. In their early 40s, each has young children at home, and they share some of the chauffeuring and sports practice duties with their wives.
"My goal is to work less and have more fun," Bob says, echoing the sentiments of his partners. "We have a lot of fun. We work hard, play hard. If you're not having fun, you probably shouldn't be doing it, No. 1, and No. 2, it has to be a win-win situation, whether it's an investor in our company or a tenant in the building or a contractor if it's not a win-win, we shouldn't be doing it.
"Life's too short not to have a winwin situation."
Photography courtesy of Dave Wallace/Image Studios and Marketplace Magazine
