One of our principals, Jack Gesmundo, was featured on the Kalamazoo Housing Today radio show. Click here to listen to the podcast, or read on to learn more about AVB and the housing market.

Can you tell us more about AVB?

We do home building in and outside of our communities, develop neighborhoods, we also do commercial construction and commercial development. We have almost 100 team members working toward the same goals and our passion is Creating Great Places to Live and Work. Our growth has really stayed within Kalamazoo County.

Jack, can you tell us more about your day to day role?

He’s part of the leadership team which together, they collaborate to give direction for the four areas we’re focused on. Day to day, though, he’s focused on residential development which includes finding new land, getting the developments designed and ready to market, and figuring out the type of housing and plan designs that will be offered. We do a lot of market research trying to understand the market, trends, and needs before launching a new community.

Right now, residential development is difficult to be in because land costs and the cost to develop are both extremely high. It’s also taking more time to get developments completed and the approval process with municipalities is getting stretched out. Any developer is taking a risk by developing a community that fits the current market, because it will change and you could be left with homes or products that aren’t selling.

What are some of the things that cost so much for turning dirt into a development?

Land is expensive and at AVB, we tend to focus on larger communities and projects. When you’re doing a development, you’re front loading all of the costs with the land including engineering costs, developing costs, brand creating and marketing materials, and then you start putting in sewer, water, curb, asphalt, gravel, and those are actually way more expensive than the land cost.

AVB is celebrating 40 years of business in 2021! How did it all begin 40 years ago?

Back in 1977, there were six or seven farms that were at the now Woodbridge Hills that Joe (Jack’s dad) acquired. Portage was a lot different back then. Joe had an investor in town that helped with purchasing the farms. He did a push pin study on where the trends were in housing and it was all south and west of the city. He then hired Art Hills to design the Moors golf course and about that time, he met Daryl Rynd and they both loved to run and would meet up and run at lunchtime. Joe was on the developing side and Daryl was on the building side and in 1981, they decided to start working together and built four homes in Woodbridge Hills that first year.

In 1990, they wanted to hire two people - one for residential business development and one for commercial business development. Jack went through the interview process and was hired!

What lessons or values did Joe and Daryl instill in you that you are still using today?

Of course, there are so many lessons. Most are what we may consider “Midwest values”. For example, your handshake and your word mean something and you always need to do what you say what you’re going to do. Of course, we want to treat people how we want to be treated. We also want to be honest with people and put customers first. Our customers and their experience is more important than profit. Another lesson to live by is if we can’t do it right, then we shouldn’t do it.

How do you keep that “mom and pop shop” feeling with 100 employees?

We’re always there to help each other out. Anyone can walk in to anyone’s office and have a conversation. We definitely have more of a horizontal structure versus a vertical structure where we have titles, but they are lost - we’re all equal. We’ve also come up with core values so that we know what to look for when hiring: do the right thing, be client focused, have a positive attitude, be proud of what we do, and be a team player. Throughout the year of Covid setbacks, we hired 22 new team members. We have also implemented EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) and this has helped us maintain and enhance what Joe and Daryl started 4o years ago.

What are your thoughts on the local construction industry for both residential and commercial?

On the residential side, we are as busy as we’ve ever seen it. Our market typically has between 3,000 and 3,500 homes on the market, and we have been in the low hundreds for a while now. Even with the low inventory, things that are helping the market are the stock market, low interest rates, and high employment levels. As with previous recessions, the housing industry seems to be keeping us out of a crash. On the opposite side, we have costs that are as high as they’ve ever been. For those selling a home, there’s almost no fear of selling, which helps people feel comfortable to move forward and build a new home. We are seeing many clients sell their current home and move into temporary homes until their new home is done. We are also seeing the building process take a little bit longer than before with delays on materials.

For the commercial side, one of AVB’s key focuses is a sense of arrival for all of our projects. For example, we have played a huge role in the Trade Centre right off of I-94 and Westnedge and Corner@Drake right off of US-131 and Stadium. When people drive on the highway, they may have no idea what Kalamazoo is and what it’s about, but they can see these nice developments. It’s important that guests’ impression of Kalamazoo is really nice!

We also have to remember that we have world class businesses in Kalamazoo such as Stryker, Pfizer, Kellogg, and Bronson and Ascension Borgess hospitals. These big companies are bringing in world class employees, but it can be a challenge to convince people to move to our little Kalamazoo town rather than a big city. This is something we really stress when developing new commercial sites such as Corner@Drake and bringing in stores such as Costco and Trader Joe’s that are important to our locals, but also those that are relocating. Residentially, we have the same focus by creating beautiful communities that provide the types of homes these world class employees would move to Kalamazoo for.

AVB does quite a bit of involvement with non-profits. What are some things that AVB is pretty involved in?

Many of our team members are involved in different boards in the community. We are also very involved financially by supporting local non-profits; most of these have a high focus on health and education. For example, we’re one of the original sponsors of the Borgess Run for the Health of It and we’re also a large supporter of Western Michigan University.

What does being a part of the HBA mean to AVB?

We believe that it’s critical for anyone in the building industry and trades to be a part of their local Home Builders Association. There are so many benefits including the Parade of Homes that is such a great community event. This gives us builders the opportunity to show our homes to thousands of people and it gives the community something to do and gives them a way to see the wonderful homes being built around them.

We are grateful that the Home Builders Association of Western Michigan gave us the opportunity to share more about AVB and our history. We hope you enjoyed hearing about what has been done in Kalamazoo the last 40 years!