Breaking Down Barriers

Kevin Krall 0:00
You're listening to special programming brought to you by Glow fitness. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and more. The University of Nevada Las Vegas or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education. breaking down barriers is brought to you by Glo fitness a fitness studio offering a variety of classes and sessions like Mommy and Me for mothers wanting to connect with their children through fitness offering strength training boot camps and more. Glo fitness is located at 40 to 50 East Bonanza Road Suite 19. specials and class schedules are available at glow fitness dot Vegas or glow fitness dot Vegas on Instagram more information by phone at 702-612-6414. is massive. Born in

Earl White 0:59
any way. Welcome to another segment of breaking down barriers were wild neural walk.

Walt Walters 1:15
Yes, sir. Good morning.

Earl White 1:16
Good morning. And we hope our audience had a nice Thanksgiving. We hope everybody got to get filled with turkey and dressing in the fixings. And so Whoa, who's our guest today?

Walt Walters 1:30
Listen, I am excited to be here as you are. We have one of our favorite people here that Earl and I have had the pleasure to work with for years now. Her name is Aaron Ben smokin smoking. And she is the corporate manager and general manager of many, many different properties, but mainly Sportsman's royal Manor, which is located at Tropicana and Boulder highway here in Las Vegas. Welcome.

Unknown Speaker 2:03
Thank you so much for having me, Walton. I really appreciate it.

Walt Walters 2:06
Listen, we are excited about this year. We like having people that care about the community. There are certain barriers that build up over the years and the folks that can change that and make a difference. It's it's incredible. And you're certainly one of those. So we're so happy to have you here. I'm going to ask you kind of a general question in the beginning. And if you can, you can elaborate on any topic you want. Because I know there's many. We're going to talk about folks today, this property of the Sportsman's rodeo Manor, which at one time was a troubled property. It has 660 units. It's a short state property, which means people don't stay they don't sign leases for two years or a year lease or anything along those lines, but they stay shorter periods and that in some cases, makes it more difficult to manage. So Aaron, I'm gonna let you kind of give us a background on sportsmen and the wonderful owner who we have we know Gary Brennan, and just kind of tell us all about the property and a history of it as well.

Unknown Speaker 3:17
Sounds good to me again, thank you for having me. Sportsman's oil Manor is a wonderful community over on Tropicana and Boulder highway. Like you had mentioned Walt. It was built in a couple of different phases in the mid to late 90s. It started as a convenience store and a bait and tackle shop on the way out to Lake Mead. With the initial Sportsman's bait and lounge is what it was called. And then our owner like you said, Mr. Brennan, acquired different parcels and saw a vision and a need for short term furnished apartments in the southeast area. Boulder highway does have a few other properties that are similar, but ours is very unique. The lobby looks like a castle does children love it you walk in there's nights there's swords on the wall. Shields I mean, it really is like a mini Excalibur almost Ivana maids of honor. Yes. It's such a cool place to visit our lobby has stayed true to theme, and people do love coming in. So it really is a is a beautiful property. It's 20 buildings, which is large, like you said, over 665 units. We do have some long term tenants now or we didn't used to, people do end up just loving the flexibility. If you work on the strip, and let's say you get paid weekly, you can pay weekly. If you want to pay monthly. If you're on a fixed income, you're paying monthly. It's just you come and pay your rent when it's due. And you can keep staying as long as you want.

Earl White 4:54
Sorry. That's terrific. Awesome. Aaron, let me ask you this question. What role can local government play in helping affordable housing business like yours, doing this, this current time?

Unknown Speaker 5:09
I think right now, when we're coming out of the pandemic, we've seen some struggles with the courts for mainly, eviction notices, which I know a lot of people may not understand how that affects the communities, but it really does affect the community. During the pandemic, as you know, there was a moratorium on evictions. And we really worked our best at making sure our tenants were staying in, in the units that they had all their air conditioning and cable, and you know, everything, all the essential services, but we still have to run the property properly, with staffing and keeping the units up. So we were lucky, we had a lot of really great tenants continue to make their rent on time. So the problem with the eviction system, and the moratorium on evictions is not the, you know, really great tenants. It's the other tenants that problem to problem tenants that we don't want on property that maybe they're not nice to their neighbors, or they're causing issues, or they're not following our rules and our policies. So that is where getting people out quickly, really helps. And it helps the neighbors, it helps the community. And we really want to keep a safe and nice community, we've worked really hard for a long time. And in the last five or six years, we've seen a lot of pay off with the improvements we've made to the units, we've made improvements to the exterior of the property, if anyone has driven past boulder highway, they've probably seen we have a shiny new wrought iron fence, which looks great, thank you. We which took over two years just to get through the, you know, different county and state municipalities to get that approved. We have new artificial turf, which just gave it a great curb appeal. We've painted all the buildings, we've done new lighting, you can see it at night really well. We've done new roofs. So we really have put in, like you said our ownership has put a lot of time and financing into the property. And we really want to make it better and better every year.

Walt Walters 7:15
Absolutely. You know, when you mentioned the lighting, it's in any type of property like this with especially with the size of this property, lighting is critical and it keeps people safe. Can you talk a little bit, if you would Aaron about the relationship that the sportsman has now with the lvmpd. And, and law enforcement in general,

Unknown Speaker 7:41
I'd be glad to talk about that. It's it's a wonderful relationship that Walton Earle here have helped us build, since they've been on property as our security vendor for a while and we have a great relationship with Metro, they give us tips on how to make their property safe. And we follow through on these tips, we have actually joined the crime free housing program, we're the only extended stay that qualified under the crime free multi housing program. That's incredible. I'm so proud of that. And we appreciate all the support from everyone on that as well. And to be a part of that program, we did start to enforce lease agreements. So we do that. And we also have kept our calls for service down tremendously, which is a huge, you know, part of being part of the program shows you have to keep those calls down.

Walt Walters 8:31
If I can, I'm gonna just mentioned some broad numbers and their general numbers. But essentially, say five years ago, that calls for service, which is when law enforcement is called to come to the property. For some crime issue. It could be very minor, but it might be very serious too. But those calls for service at the sportsman back in those days. Were like anywhere from three to 500 a month. They were the highest of any property like sportsmen in Clark County. Today, and I can have you comment on this too, which we're very proud of calls for service at that property now or anywhere from 10 to 12. And they're minor in nature. No violent no violent crime. Wow. It's it's and that's a that's a testament to you and the changes that you've made. And Mr. Brennan, the owner of the property has made to

Unknown Speaker 9:29
I really appreciate the you know the comments and going I really feel like it's a team effort though I think sir Walton Earl and Metro and ourselves as a team you know, really worked with the community partners and made it a better safer property for our residents.

Earl White 9:46
And see to the in you know, in the housing business, curb appeal is everything and I think that the improvements at Sportsman's is help the whole key community not only just road or highway, but Tropicana and and you know, at the end of the day people need to feel good about where they live. And yes, we know that the residents feel good about where they live a sportsman

Unknown Speaker 10:15
and we're trying to keep it up. We're trying to keep making it better.

Walt Walters 10:17
The maintenance is great. Yeah, yeah,

Unknown Speaker 10:20
we continue to devote staff to just keeping the property up and keeping the units up. So if someone moves out, and unfortunately, the room or the unit may have been damaged, we turn it right around so that the next person has no clue they move right into a brand new unit, fresh paint, fresh carpet, you know, new furnishings. So we really feel that that's a big deal to

Earl White 10:42
what, who are some of your community partners? That's you,

Unknown Speaker 10:46
we work with quite a few different agencies. Like I said, we work with Trinity security here, Walton Erol, we work with Metro, we've had my father's house church, who works very close with the southeast area command with Metro, they've done some outreach projects. We've had some of the local insurance companies come to our events, you know, like UnitedHealthcare, and a lot of those age a lot of those companies. So just a few different faith based partners, like I said, with my brother's house,

Walt Walters 11:16
and something that we have personal knowledge of, and we're going to talk about an event that's coming up soon. But every year that we've been over at the property, you've had Christmas celebrations, you've had all kinds of things for the tenants, you know, with, say food that they might need toys and clothing for the kids.

Unknown Speaker 11:37
We try to coordinate and a lot of that is to help with the help of like I said Trinity security and Metro Metro does that their outreach in the southeast Area Command has been phenomenal. Sure, Hey, bring three square turkeys and meals. During the holidays. We do bikes and raffles and toys. And I know that you you're you guys have also helped with that as well. Sure tremendously.

Earl White 12:00
I know. You have to be part of the coalition. There's a coalition

Unknown Speaker 12:04
there is a stop Coalition on but there's also a boulder highway coalition deliberate. Sure. So these coalition's are through the southeast area command, through like I said, through Metro through their outreach, and we go to monthly meetings, we talk about some issues in the southeast area like homelessness, things like that, and how we can help what we can do. We all go to events for the area. So we have national night out, we just went to through Metro, we go with Easter events, we have movie in the park events, we have a Halloween event where we do trunk or treat. Yeah, they're all really fun events. We try to go to as many as we can, and show our support.

Walt Walters 12:46
And I know that which I think is outstanding. you notify all your tenants of these like trunk or treat and where it's going to be held so that they can take advantage of of all the different things that the coalition's do.

Unknown Speaker 13:00
Yes, we try very hard to advertise any event, we would love for our tenants to go and be a part of the community.

Walt Walters 13:07
Yeah, and that's your benefits. Because some in certain cases, not all, but some of the families are a little underserved. And they're trying their best to get back on their feet. And they're doing it.

Unknown Speaker 13:18
And I and I do look for more resources, we've had job resources come out. So any other agencies who are wanting to come out, we usually plan that plan any event and invite whoever we can.

Earl White 13:30
Yeah, yeah, I think that, you know, Walt, and I have first hand knowledge of the fact that when we walked the property, we can just tell the difference from when we first got there. That's right. And you know, and people appreciate that, you know, because everybody deserves a nice roof over their head, and a place to call home. And what we really enjoyed was the camaraderie, a sense of community, whenever there's an event and just neighborly talking to each other, just just that whole atmosphere creates a sense of community. And whenever you have a sense of community, you always, always improve the area that you live in. And so we

Unknown Speaker 14:13
we agree 100% We think it is a community, and we want our residents to feel safe, we want them to be happy to be there. We want to provide a nice environment for them. So we do what we can to enforce our policies and keep it as a nice place.

Walt Walters 14:30
Yeah, I can. I can. I think we're all over the years. The last 20 years we've we've been in the security business, apartment complexes, commercial centers, all over town all over the our Las Vegas Valley and I think that sense of community that that URL is talking about. It's it's better at sportsman than any other place that we have watched and we probably have watched 200 apartment complexes in our valley that In that 20 years, and that

Earl White 15:01
has a lot to do with your staff, you know, your staff, your staff, you know, their compassion, and they care. And you know, and that's important because, you know, your your frontline people, the first people that your your potential clients see means a lot,

Unknown Speaker 15:20
we try really hard when we're hiring the front desk, like you said, the front desk clerks, we want them to be happy and happy to work there. A lot of them are happy to live there as well. And they want nice neighbors, too. That helps. And we just want happy staff, we've had quite a few staff members worked there 10 years, 20 years, you know, your longevity with a lot of employees. And I think that says a lot to our company and our ownership that we try to try to keep retain employees and keep everyone happy.

Walt Walters 15:50
Yeah. We talked briefly about this crime free housing, I call it an award because it's, it's not easy to get. And I'd like to if you can talk a little bit more about that. And, and some of the things that you had to do as a, as a business and as a complex, just to be able to be to get this award. Well,

Unknown Speaker 16:16
we are in our third year, which we're very proud of, we hope one day to be, you know, up in the double double digit years. But it's coming. Yes. But the main thing was we had to start with, like I said, the lease agreements and become an apartment complex, not just a transient lodging community, we had to go through different questionnaires with Metro with the, with the local southeast area command where they come out, they check our lighting, they do an inspection to make sure that's up to par. We had to make sure that we follow this up Ted requirements with our landscaping, making sure we had certain, you know, certain screws in the in the doors, make sure we have window locks, there's just sure a list of items that Metro puts out in this crime free program. I'd like to

Walt Walters 17:06
talk about septet Yes, as you were talking about. And, folks, what that talks about is that the the landscaping, the trees, the lighting, all that has to be perfect, if you will, for lack of a better word. I know that many apartment complexes that we have we have worked in, they just let their landscaping go. They don't have the maintenance people

Earl White 17:28
and they couldn't get they couldn't get certified didn't know,

Unknown Speaker 17:31
they get sued. All of these things play a part, like every part, you know, and I know, I'm I don't work for Metro, but I've heard and on the trainings, you know, the broken window theory, you know, where you have broken windows? And why would someone living there want to, you know, make it a safe place and not do bad things there. You know, we're not taking care of it as management and and so we always fix things right away. I mean, our staff knows that's for sure. See something you you tell the manager and you we fix it as soon as possible. That's right. So we went through all of these items with the southeast area command staff. And then we had a security social where we invited tenants to come meet with Metro officers and talk about their concerns. A safety social, and we just went through all these programs, and we do it every

Walt Walters 18:20
year. What did we have ice cream for the kids or something? We had ice

Unknown Speaker 18:24
cream, we had coffee with a cop that's fun. And I,

Earl White 18:29
the day that we had the event, we had a big shindig that day, we had all food and yeah, I think was tacos or

Unknown Speaker 18:36
Yeah, we always we try to do something fun. Yeah, yeah.

Earl White 18:40
And I and that was, you know, I actually speak for Walt on this. That was the day that we were not so much proud of what we did, but we were proud that the residents responded. And they were a part of the celebration. Yes. You know,

Unknown Speaker 18:56
yes, we always want to see our residents at these events. I mean, that just that's what we do it for. And that's why we do it for and we'd love to see them come out and have a good have a good showing.

Walt Walters 19:07
Yeah, and a good time. You know, I'd like them, which brings me December 20. We're going to have a celebration for the third anniversary of a crime free status, which is a big deal. Yes. And as we mentioned, sportsman is the only short state property in our state that has this designation

Unknown Speaker 19:28
the hour very proud of it. We are having a holiday party and a celebration of our our third year, we're going to have like I said, a raffle for toys. Free food. We want a lot of residents to come out and cheese. Yes. Yes, right. Yeah. Cannot wait there. So they're amazing. Yeah, it's gonna be fun. We try to do different events like this throughout the year and we try to support the area events as well.

Walt Walters 19:55
Let's Can we talk I'm not sure where we'll go with this but we We've talked about the past with sportsmans, and current status, which are all phenomenal. What do you see in the future for for sportsmans, and where your you want to take take or chimp maybe small changes. At sports,

Unknown Speaker 20:14
I think like I said earlier, we're very devoted to making it a better community. So we're constantly working on the exterior maintenance of the property, right, making the interior of the units better. So we are always changing and going with the new styles and you know, trying to just make it a really nice community. So I think, for us for the future is just to continue that maintenance and that upgrade of the and improve the property. With tech, even with technology, as you guys know, we have over 50 security cameras, that's why the technology changes, you know, the technology changes with a lot of different things. So we just try to keep it a really safe place. And continue. Continue to do what we can. I think, as you guys know, we work on we do background checks, we do a lot of screenings. So as technology changes with that, we'll continue to adapt and go with that as well.

Walt Walters 21:07
Yeah, the the fencing, it was an incredible addition. And I know how long it took and how hard it was you were dealing with, I think three or four different county or state agencies. And but that is really a plus, I know from a security or safety standpoint, we've limited access. And that makes the difference. We know who's on property he's walking around, and the kids that are their plan, they're safer, and the families are safer. And that's that's him I know important to you. And Mr. Brennan,

Unknown Speaker 21:40
well, our main our main goal was to make it where tenants can still you know, walk onto the property, not make it so you can't walk on. But if you don't live there, we don't really want you to walk on well, we want people that are invited guests that we know who they are. We want our residents to feel like they can access the property easily. But we still want to keep it very safe. Like you said for children and all the residents

Earl White 22:05
and seniors you get Yeah, good group of seniors there. Can you elaborate on the type of units you have? And maybe even what what the cost might, might be sure.

Unknown Speaker 22:18
So we have studio apartments, we have Junior one bedroom, which is a smaller one bedroom, then we're going to have a large we have a larger one bedroom. And we have a two bedroom unit. So we have four different styles. The rates are the art, they vary by the style, and you can pay weekly or monthly. So that varies as well. They can anyone interested for rates can call the main office, I can even give that on on the air. And the website the the website even has some rates too. So the main office number is 702-458-7071. Can you repeat that one? Sure. 7024 or 587071. Wonderful. And also our website is www dot royal Manor, l v.com. It has a beautiful drone video of the property. It has photos of the units it also has our moving rates. If it's easier just to go on the website and

Earl White 23:23
Facebook has some you gotta do you

Unknown Speaker 23:25
have a great Facebook page. We try to get on social media a little bit here and get with the times.

Earl White 23:32
Now there's another property you have we

Unknown Speaker 23:35
Yes, we also manage under extended stay. It's called the manor suites. It's on Las Vegas Boulevard south near Warm Springs. It it's a little bit smaller of a property than sportsmans it's 260 units. There we have large one bedroom furnished units and we have two bedroom units.

Walt Walters 23:55
Those are I've seen those units are beautiful.

Unknown Speaker 23:58
That is that's like I said a newer property. It's very similar to Sportsman's with the castle as the lobby and our medieval office. Again, we try to instill the same values over there with our staff and our background check system. But basically it is different locations. So it's going to have different pricing, okay, but I can give the listeners the phone number and website for this as well. So that one's at 7230 Las Vegas Boulevard south and like I said it's right near Warm Springs right across from the premium outlet south so it's a great area of town.

Earl White 24:37
It is a great property nice swimming pool.

Unknown Speaker 24:40
Right by the fifth team, the 215 It's just a great location to the airport. Yes, it's a great location

Earl White 24:47
and at your properties. You take animals. We do we do

Unknown Speaker 24:51
take pets. They can call for some different roles. You know, we do have some pet deposits and pet rent. But we do take pets Yes, yes, that's important. Yes, and Manna sweets, it's really easy. It's just www dot Manna sweets.com Brianne, the phone number is 702-939-9000 9000 Easy,

Earl White 25:15
you know, as we approach the end of our show, I'm let I'm gonna let you just elaborate on what whatever you want the listening audience to know.

Unknown Speaker 25:25
I think the main thing is that the Sportsman's royal Manor, it's been in town for a very long time. And I just want everyone out there to know how proud we are of the property of the ownership really cares about the safety of the residents, management cares about our community, our residents. Unfortunately, things might have happened in the past on boulder highway, but we feel like sportsmans has turned the page we feel like the area has gotten so much better. And we really feel like if someone's looking for short term furnished apartments who really give us a chance and come see the property sportsmans

Walt Walters 26:03
really early. And I think I'm speaking for Earl too on this. They're like the shining light, if you will, on boulder highway, we try watching changed. It just shows that change can happen. And your attitude through management. And Mr. Brennan's the owner has just been incredible. We've tried

Unknown Speaker 26:22
very hard for a long time. I think like I said, since it's been built, we've been trying but I think just we've turned the corner and found a great team here. Yeah, and with our security and with Metro with our, with the captain at the southeast area command and the former captains and we've got a friend, we've been very fortunate to have some great relationships.

Earl White 26:44
You know, I encourage our listeners to go to the website or the Facebook page and read the story about sportsmans that was in the police chief magazine. Yes, it's on our website and your website. And this it's a beautiful story. It will give her our listening audience and any potential clients and opportunity to really see where you at and where you came. Where you at and where you are now. And just it's a great story about just the changes. Not only a sportsman's but border highway, because sportsman, with the changes you made, the rest of the community benefited.

Unknown Speaker 27:23
We try to we try we want the whole area to be just That's right. We're extremely safe for all boulder highway, the southeast we want, you know, low crime, no violent crimes, right? I just want to keep it all nice place to keep it nice.

Walt Walters 27:37
And you said one thing, and I want to get this Yeah, before we be finished. About the length of stay for the tenants. And I mean, I remember when Earl and I were over there when we first began, people were in and out. But there were some people and they're still there.

Unknown Speaker 27:56
today. We appreciate our tenants that are all of our tenants. But the long term tenants, I know a lot of them by face and name now have lived there five years, 10 years, you know, and they've seen a lot of changes, and they're really happy to but they've stuck with us. And we appreciate that so much. Yeah,

Earl White 28:14
I want to give a shout out to Michael and Kyle, of your staff that when Walt and I started when we started over there, and James and James, all three, that our relationship with them. We felt part of a team right away and we felt their compassion, yes. You're very compassionate about in sometimes in this business, because you have the bottom line, you have to stick to the bottom line, he or she won't be in business long. But their compassion and their concern about the community was was something that was refreshing for us.

Unknown Speaker 28:51
I think it's been great. We have such a great team. And like you said, we have people that have worked for us for you know, several years. That's right, James, Michael and Kyle are in that group. And we do move people around and they may not always be at that location, but they're still involved. Sure, and still helping in the back end. That's right, so we just need everyone.

Earl White 29:12
Well, that's gonna do it for this show.

Kevin Krall 29:18
breaking down barriers is brought to you by Glo fitness, a fitness studio offering a variety of classes and sessions like Mommy and Me for mothers wanting to connect with their children through fitness offering strength training boot camps and more. Glo fitness is located at 40 to 50 East Bonanza Road Suite 19 specials and class schedules available at glow fitness dot Vegas or glow fitness dot Vegas on Instagram more information by phone at 702-612-6414

Transcribed by https://otter.ai