Mountain tops are some of the least expensive acreage in the USA. Why? The grid doesn't reach most mountain tops in America. But with cell phone technology, satellite TV and SkyLink internet - communications challenges have been solved for remote and rural lands. Off grid technologies are being developed which will make living off grid, away from traditional electrical services more efficient, and cheaper than living in cities or on grid. Don't believe me? DIRT is investing i

In November 2022 I drove across Kansas and Missouri, this is the Flint Hills of Kansas. The wide-open prairie, the horizon. The vastness. It feels limitless. But what is missing? Wind breaks. When I was a child in northern Michigan, farmers planted wind breaks to reduce soil erosion. We learned about the Great Dust Bowl in the 1920s which led to the Great Depression and near starvation of many people. The growth of the deserts around the world it is said is due to a simple la

The Wizard of OZ would have been impressed, because Dorothy we were in Kansas. The aquifer under Kansas' legendary farmland has dropped over '60 feet in the last decade' exclaimed the Director of Agriculture for the State of Kansas in his presentation. The farmers in the audience were not shock or appalled - they already knew this fact. I didn't. It shocked me. 60 feet? Sixty? Like 6 stories of a building -- gone under 70% of the state? A state known for its food production w

At the Prairie Foods Conference on regenerative farming this slide was displayed. "Life on Earth would not be possible without Carbon" -- fair enough. "Carbon holds water" -- if you think about drought in the west, adding carbon to the soil is the answer to retaining the water which runs off, runs thru and doesn't allow plants to grow today. As we struggle with the increasing demands on global agriculture - soil depletion and population growth (8 billion growing to 9 billion

The dominos keep falling, yet the nay sayers doubt that Pontiac will be a great city once again... United Shore moves nearly 9,000 young, high wage employees to Pontiac. Williams International relocates military aerospace manufacturing to Pontiac. Both McLaren and St Joseph Hospitals expand, in Pontiac. Amazon builds a 3.2 million square foot facility in Pontiac. The list goes on and on, nearly every month an exciting new development comes to Pontiac. Now the Detroit Internat

Yikes. At DIRT we own a lot of office space and the thought that its all obsolete was asked often in 2020. I recall attending the ICSC (retail real estate) conference in 2012. The experts were downplaying the impact that online shopping would have on retail sales. And a dinner conversation I had with a hotel franchise owner, where he told me AirBnB was a fad and could never scale to compete with the hotel or even the motel business. Needless to say, I'm concerned America may

This former bank headquarters holds nearly a century of history. Indeed this windowless, wasn't. Behind the 1960s panels there were actually 2 large windows. Time to help this old girl breathe again. Never be afraid to dig deeper. Ask DIRT. #askDIRT #DIRTRealty

It's not an impossible idea, that buildings would be organic and grow. Nature is soothing because its, hum, natural? Actually studies have proven that the fluid, free form flow of nature is part of the answer to why we just feel better surrounded by it. It is 'alive' and there are no straight lines in nature. This is a restaurant in Baja Mexico, most of the materials are salvaged and recycled. The lines are free flowing in all directions. The colors are the hue of nature. The

I helped design this home, and had a love affair with shipping containers, their repurposing and why they could be a global recycled building block for a better future. Odd that there were 3 simple things which killed our business plans: Municipal zoning and Fear of New. Cities could not get comfortable with the more modern design and building methods. We could point to the many benefits in strength, reuse, site plan maximization etc. But new, even if better, is scary. 8' wid

If you're reading the DIRT blog, you know how proud I am of the work Care Free Medical and Dental are doing in Lansing. We are just the landlord, but the building is a model for what every county in America (world) needs to set up. Preventative care saves lives, and taxpayer money. Making it easy to reach care saves time, increases quality of life, and means people actually get the care. We thought a lot about this before we purchased 1100 W Saginaw - a vacant medical office

I logged over 18,000 road miles in my new Dodge Warlock Pick Up Truck this year. I drove another 9,000 miles and flew 13 roundtrips in 2020. I believe I hiked (walked) over 3,182,435 steps (according to my iPhone). Not my biggest travel year, but the most shocking. America felt like a ghost town. Where did all the people go, or not go? Will they come back when the virus is gone? Will this virus, or the next one, ever be 'gone'? I do not wish to provoke another debate about ma