How Chicago Music Town is Transforming Communities with Opportunity Zones

Powers (00:00)
So imagine if you were building ⁓ Amazon or Facebook in an opportunity you sell that investment, have no capital gains into perpetuity.

Quentin (01:42)
Going on everybody. Welcome to the Investor Fuel podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds. And listen, I am joined by somebody who I really believe you’re going to find an interesting take on what they are doing, what they are building, the initiatives that they are going after. And so I want to dive right in because this man is

a wealth of knowledge. I believe he believes in what he’s doing. His initiative is secure. And so I just want to introduce you guys and let y’all hear from my friend, Mr. Miller. How you doing, sir?

Powers (02:22)
Hey, thank you, Quentin. Thank you for the

introduction. I just want to say to the people that are watching this that you’ve got a good show. And ⁓ that’s what drew me to it. You know, I reached out because I’m so impressed with the quality of the content and we’re honored to be on it. And I think we’re going to bring something today that ⁓ is interesting, not only interesting, but ⁓ it’s going to, I think it’ll, I think that some of you will really enjoy the ⁓ overall purpose and the righteousness of it because

It’s our belief that that’s what’s necessary right now. It you know, there’s a lot of stuff going on I’m not afraid to say that I believe we’re in a spiritual war Okay, and with the movement of technology and things like that and what’s going on in real estate at high levels We’re not going to discuss any of that. You know, you know, right? So what I want to tell you is is that I have a background I’ve been in real estate for over 30 years I’ve been successful by any, you know standards. I’m not a big time

guy like that, but I’ve done big time things and I’ve been part of big big time organizations. ⁓ And when the opportunity zones for those of you that are familiar with opportunity zones first came out in 2017, ⁓ by the way, we’re based in Chicago and what we’re going to be talking about today is Chicago music town. Okay. Which evolves into kind of a, more than that. have a pre IPO part of it and we’ll get to all that. ⁓ Chicago music. was down in Houston.

And it started, had a, I wanted to open a blues club in Houston and I wanted to make the blues cool again. I was saying that, I don’t know if that even, that doesn’t even make any sense, but I wanted to, I was trying to, I have a lot of friends in music and I have some that are fathers and sons, right? So there’s, you know, there’s, there’s a, there’s a gap there when it comes to instruments, types of music. So, you know, I had good intentions, but as it evolved and I looked at it and my, you know, my first interest was really that I have experience in tax incentivized housing at a high level. So.

I saw that and I saw where it was supposed to go, opportunity zones, and

of some things they probably learned early on where they did it by census tracts and ⁓ income numbers, ⁓ and the governors got to pick the opportunity zones. So I’m never afraid to tell the truth. So we know that there’s a lot ⁓ of imbalance and there’s a lot of edges for people in any type of industry.

I watched it and the first ⁓ Champaign Illinois is where the University of Illinois is, one of the biggest universities in the country. And the governor put an opportunity zone there because the students didn’t have any income, right?

So those were the cherry pick deals they went and I wished I was here to tell you that we had some cherry pick deal or something like that from ⁓ anybody that plays in those circles. I have something better than that. ⁓ The greatest asset class is God.

And this is a very serious, ⁓ very serious endeavor that I started on about seven and a half

ago. And we’ve withered the storm and we’ve gotten it to a point where every challenge, which just redefined that it was real, ⁓ we’ve overcome it and we’re ready to launch. And what we’re going to give you today is some very early information, very early information. So let me ⁓ get to the point. ⁓ As the vision went on and it was involved in the music industry and me having a lot of contacts in the music industry, not being a musician myself,

⁓ I decided that, you know, based on my experience in communities like this, I thought that, you know, I looked at the deal and you have to have a qualified opportunity zone fund. These are just technical deals. We don’t have to get into it today. And I looked at the other funds, the big funds out there and what they were doing with opportunity zones, because billions and billions of dollars have gone into these in the first round and they just got renewed.

And you’d see a group and they talk about diversification, right? So they say, okay, we’re to put affordable housing in Baltimore. We’re put one in Detroit and do this and that. And I looked at it and that didn’t excite me because, I have an issue sometimes with affordable housing before anybody wants to live there even, you know, because there’s no grocery store and things like that. And I’m not trying to be harsh. I’m just trying to be direct. ⁓ So I looked at it and I said, you know, I don’t think that’s the solution.

I don’t, you I’ve never really believed in diversification. I believe a lot of times we get, we get, we get words with meaning that we sometimes overthink. But I said the solution to a disinvested, I said, I started asking people, said, what’s the solution to a disinvested community? And I get good answers. You got any, you want to give me an answer? Just, you know, what’s the solution? Give me some solutions to a disinvested community.

Quentin (07:44)
I mean, you gotta invest in the community. How about that? You know, I mean, you gotta put something there to make people, yeah, get people excited about, you know, something that they can put that money into, yeah.

Powers (07:48)
No question.

No question.

No question. And we’ve seen 60 years of programs and this and that and the other, and I’ve defined it. And if you guys are interested and you learn more about us, I’ve written a lot of things, case studies and things, but we’ll go into all that today. ⁓ But those are good answers. Like what you said is investment. I’m glad you didn’t say some of the other things that people have been conditioned to say because they haven’t worked. And I’m not trying to offend anybody. I’m just trying to tell the truth, man. We got to have more people say, man, look what’s going on out here. We can’t be.

Quentin (07:57)
Yeah.

Powers (08:20)
can’t be fooled anymore. I said the solution is everything. Any community, especially here in Chicago, and we know what happened in the past, we’re going to try not to go there because this isn’t about blaming, this isn’t about none of that stuff, this is about a solution. So the solution is everything. Any community should have access to the same amenities, the same opportunities any other community has,

And if you looked at, what we’re particularly talking about here at North Lawndale is kind of the center of what we’re building. We’ve got a 15 year plan, which probably only take 10 years, the way things are coming together. ⁓ Nevertheless, if you look at that, you know, they’ve got the greatest people and I call it the chamber of commerce materials, right? So if a business is looking at a place where they want to go and they go and they get the chamber of commerce, they see all that stuff and they got the best. I mean, they do a really good job at it, but nobody wants to talk about the drugs and the crime, right?

So I said, I said, God, please, I said, don’t let me go in there and be like a lot of other people that I’ve heard about and I’ve even seen with my own eyes, go in there, talk a good game. You know, the prices are right, right? So you can do some hustles and people make money, but it never changes anything. And he told me, no, no, he said, really what we’re doing is we’re spreading the truth and things like that at a higher level. I don’t have to go into that right now. So I looked at, looked in, you know, I had the idea already of doing something music related and,

We it started as the Chicago Music Museum and the Chicago Music Hall of Fame. And we’ve got a we’ve got a landmark property. We’re buying the old Sears headquarters before the ⁓ before the old Sears Tower was built.

We already have a turnkey deal on one of them. We’re buying we’re buying four pieces of property, a total of over 500,000 square feet, ⁓ four acres to build on in a parking garage with ⁓ two stories of ⁓ retail we can do. And we’re getting it.

for almost nothing. ⁓ But as we went through this process, I knew that the drugs and the crime had to be addressed. I’m from Chicago, and I started educating myself and just showing up. And ⁓ there’s a lot of reasons, but I can show you better than I can tell you. Let me just say this, something’s going on in Chicago right now. You’re not going to hear about it because they don’t want you to hear about it. And I’ve been here my whole life almost.

I know the difference and it’s not the first time, but it’s a different time. And this is a real thing and it’s going to go nationwide here real soon. So what we did is we got to know the community. We got really invested in the community and the people. And we came up with a concept that’s never been done before. Not only are we doing these things, which are just deals, right? ⁓ We wanted the deal to make sense as the investment itself, not with the tax incentives, right? I believe that you don’t take a deal for the tax incentives.

You look for a deal that you could do without the tax incentives, and then that becomes the icing on the cake. we’ve got to bring economy into the neighborhood. ⁓ So we looked into that. We were doing that. And I realized that if we establish this area, I looked at everywhere else in whole country, it’s amazing Chicago doesn’t have it yet. ⁓ Chicago leaves the nation in music ⁓ in the number of seats, the number of genres, a lot of things, again.

for time purposes, I don’t want to go into the rabbit holes. I’m just going to tell you that when you look at this deal, you’re not going to find anything, but just it’s divine. Okay. Because it’s so, it’s so needed. It’s so righteous. It’s so timely. And it’s, it’s really, uh, it’s, it’s, there’s some urgency there too. So, um, what’s going to happen with music town. See music town is a brand. We’re rebranding the West side of Chicago. Okay. You always hear about the West side of Chicago and the South side of Chicago. Well, that’s how we’re going to work. Okay.

So we’re rebranding it, we’re calling it Music Town, and we’ve got a whole vision that includes intellectual property, merchandise, licensing, all kinds of things that evolved out of this tourist, well not anymore called a tourist, called a live music and entertainment district, right? And there’s so much else in there, and I don’t have time to talk about today, but as we did this, I looked at it and I said, and they were always using that word equity back then, because this was in the last couple of years, they’ve been using the word equity, they replaced equality with equity, right? And they thought everybody would just be dumb and-

think that that’s what it is. Because equity involves ⁓ ownership. It doesn’t involve anything to do with what they said. So I said, you know, those community benefit agreements, the community benefit agreements that are notorious with the politicians here in Chicago, ⁓ I said, that doesn’t seem like it’s enough. I said, why don’t we do a community equity agreement? So I believe that by investing in the community, it’s going be so much better for all of our money, right? Because we’re in this for the long haul. We’re really here to do something. So we’re giving 50 %

of the intellectual property licensing, whether that’s a coffee mug at the airport that says Music Town somewhere down the line or whether anything else. 50 % goes right into a Music Town Chamber of Commerce, which will be run by people from the community. ⁓ Our attorney went and did the homework. He said, ⁓ we’re going to base it off the Hollywood sign in Hollywood because that’s run by a Chamber of Commerce. And that’s going right in the community.

And I actually had, I won’t say his name, but he was a real A-list musician, right? And he was talking to me about Music Town, this is actually a couple years ago, and he was being skeptical as he should. And I said, I the difference between this deal and every other deal is that the government doesn’t get to touch the money this time, right? Because we’re raising private money. That’s why you guys are going to be interested in this. And we’re buying everything right. We’ve got a great return. And then it kept evolving. And you know, it just so happens that our neighbor in this community, North Lawndale, which is

one of four communities that make up Music Town, but North Lawndale, which is where Martin Luther King Jr. set up his headquarters for the civil rights movement back in 1966. It’s also called the Holy City, and that’s where Sears headquarters was. Everything just fell into place there. ⁓ So ⁓ my point about that is that the location, I just lost my train of thought. Give me one second.

You want to put me back on track? What was it?

Quentin (15:43)
Yeah

No, so man, so you were talking about the 50 % intellectual property deal. You were saying the difference. Yeah.

Powers (15:50)
Yeah, that’s it.

Okay. So, you know, as I saw what’s going on with this Unity movement, which is huge, and these guys are, you know, they’re sharp guys. And it started evolving into things like, well, you know, it’s probably time to, if you can get a Unity movement going nationwide, you can start it go bottom up, right? Then that’s what’s happening. You can unionize the cannabis industry so you don’t lose out on that deal, right? Because they took advantage of all the communities. You can unionize the music industry.

Quentin (16:16)
All right. Yeah.

Powers (16:20)
And it just kept evolving and evolving. I was going to say our neighbor in North Lawndale, that’s where I got lost, is Centerspace Film Studios, which is the largest film studio outside of Hollywood in the whole United States. So we’ve got the perfect setup here. We’re one mile from a new $6 billion development that’s at the United Center where the owners of the Bulls and the Blackhawks are doing the stuff. So we’re the perfect amenity. The numbers make sense. We’ve got funds that are, we’re buying four properties in both.

We’re selling them off individually at great margins is one part of the deal, but it evolved into a thing where we always had a vision for, you know, more than just the real estate, because this is about the culture and the culture is a brand. And there’s a lot of, a lot of companies that have made a lot of money off the culture over the years. Okay. Just look over here in Europe, like the Gucci’s, all the fashion labels, the car labels, right. And we’ve done a case study and we’ve got partners with

and I’ll just get to the point because I don’t know how much time we got, but I know that the right people will hear enough and they’re going to have some interest and I can answer questions too. ⁓ It evolved into a deal where some of the biggest people in the music industry initially, but in the entertainment industry, and I’m not at liberty to say their names right now, but we have non-disclosures and we have things like that. And some of these people have experience in trying to do this before where they wanted to reshuffle the distribution of content.

That’s like a monopoly. And if you don’t know, you don’t know. Just I’ll tell you what, they’re very vulnerable right now, believe it or not, because it used to be to be in the, whoever controls the airwaves has all the power. I didn’t learn that till the last couple of years. And it used to be that if you wanted to be a TV station or a ⁓ music, you know,

Quentin (17:49)
Yeah.

Powers (18:07)
in the music distribution and all those things, had to deal with, know, the radio stations, had the old payola, they had all these things and it was all crooked, it’s bad business and the talent’s always the ones that get left out and don’t make the money. And ⁓ nowadays it’s different though, because the truth is, and they don’t want anybody to know this, that all you need is an internet connection and a URL and you can do whatever you want. Now the trick is, is how do people find that? And I say the same thing about music. I say good music sells itself.

The trick is getting it heard. ⁓ you know, it just so happens, not all this stuff, a lot of this stuff ⁓ is divine. I promise you, I’m a messenger to some really high level people and we’ve got our foot in there and we’re day one founders. So it’s good to get to know us. But anyways, a lot of this stuff ⁓ is already going on at high levels. It’s getting tied together now. Cause all this stuff already existed. There’s so many talented people and I don’t want to even go there.

⁓ It all speaks for itself. what happened was is where we started out with, okay, we want to have an online presence too. We want to get in the NF. We want to do all these things. It’s fun when you’re just thinking of it, it’s really, it’s not easy until you find out that all this stuff’s already happening and then this unity movement can tie it together. So what we have now, because in the opportunity zone legislation, if you’re an opportunity zone investor, if you have any capital gains liabilities,

This year, next year, you want to sell anything, you got capital gains, you got anything, you can take it backwards too. ⁓ That’s what prompted this deal. So we have an opportunity zone fund. And ⁓ the thing about that is you can either write the check on the capital gains to the IRS, okay, let’s say you sold something earlier this year, whatever, or you can write it to yourself, invest it into an opportunity zone. The government’s actually gonna pay you to loan you the money because after… ⁓

If you get it in here in the near future, you’ll get the first year one, will be a 50, take 15 % off of your capital gains just for you spending the money in the neighborhoods. And it goes like that. But the really big part of the deal, which most people aren’t going to be able to achieve because they don’t really, I don’t think it’s been marketed right. Is that if you make an investment into an opportunity zone and you, ⁓ and you hold that for 10 years or put it into something else in the opportunity zone for 10 years,

you sell that investment,

have no capital gains into perpetuity.

So imagine if you were building ⁓ Amazon or Facebook in an opportunity

with the same type of tax benefits. So those people that made all that money wouldn’t even have to pay capital gains on it. So that’s what got me on the track of, you know, if we could have a product like that and it’s evolved into a network, but it’s talent owned, okay? Because, you know, I’ve been in real estate long enough to know, I remember the days of Walmart, okay? That was a real estate play. If you had a little business that could make a profit ⁓ on its own.

You were good. If you could get out by the Walmart, now you got all the gravy from the extra traffic. And then what Amazon did to that model is to kind of crushed it because what they started selling books and then all of sudden they had unlimited. They can sell anything. I said, well, why can’t the entertainment business be like that? we know, and for those of you that don’t know, I’m not being harsh. I’m just speaking facts. Notorious for taking advantage of talent.

So I looked at it and I said, okay, what is the business model these days? You we’re all the product. We don’t want to get into too much of that. You know, the truth’s coming out. I think a lot of us are getting woke up or not woke up, but you know, getting enlightened. And so the business model for all these big companies that have so much power is they aggregate us, the customer. All they’re trying to do is get the customers and then they’re turning us into a product, making money off of us, but they’re using the talent to get us. I said, why doesn’t anybody give them the talent ownership?

And back in the day, we were the first Coldwell Baker in state of Illinois. My parents were back in the day. And that’s another story for another day. I learned about Remax through that process when Remax came about in the 90s. And you you wouldn’t think it, but it’s almost the same business model. Because what Remax did is they went and they got all the high shooter agents and they put them in and they gave them their own business and then they just rented them space. And that’s going to be done with the talent. So real interesting is that we’ve already got

a few dozen, maybe more than that, of the highest, you wouldn’t even believe the names, right? And we’re looking to have about 100 before this all gets made public. And we’ve got a plan that is just crystal clear. We’ve got an event that will be bigger than Live Aid, for those of you that remember Live Aid, that’s gonna come together with the unity and peace. I don’t wanna say too much on it. Let me just say this.

We have a very limited opportunity for people to take advantage. We have four funds. We have a real estate fund. We have a private equity fund. We have a venture capital fund and we have the opportunity zone fund. And we also have a safe agreement, which is a simple agreement for future equity for people that want to take place just directly in the pre IPO. But it’s very limited because we’re making the biggest people in the world owners, but we’re not charging them, right? They’ve already done their sweat equity.

They’re gonna come in and they’re gonna give exclusivity, right? And we’re gonna just flip the whole thing upside down and it’s a great plan and we can back it up. So there’s a very limited opportunity. The funds will be open, those funds, but right now, ⁓ money that comes into the funds, even if you don’t wanna go straight into the pre-IPO, because everybody’s got their own system. ⁓

Quentin (23:39)
Yeah.

Powers (23:40)
Every

fund is going to have at least some upside in the pre IPO. So you’re not going to find another real estate fund, another, ⁓ any fund out there that’s got the upside that we provide on some high level stuff. And I’ll kind of wind it down right there because it’s so good. We don’t have enough time to tell you everything, but it’s real. It’s real.

Quentin (23:57)
Absolutely, man. I know it’s real. I’m glad you brought it to our attention. I’m glad you talked about it. The Chicago Music Town, man. I’m excited for you. Excited about your 15-year plan. I’m excited about what you guys are doing. Buying that old sales headquarters. This is big thing, man. And so if people wanted to hear more about what you’re doing, maybe get involved, maybe collaborate, what’s the best way that they can reach out to you,

Powers (24:22)
Well, ⁓ interestingly enough, ⁓ we’ve kept this pretty much offline. And I think about this for a second, because it doesn’t sound like anybody would do that in this day and age, but I got my attorney, he represents the Grammys, right? And he’s high level. He’s amazed me with some of the stuff he can get done. he’s a Jedi. And a lot of this stuff is, we had to keep it as quiet as possible. So our website will be up in the next day or two and you can get that, but.

If they want to contact you or contact me, I can get them information. We got to have a non-disclosure sign. One thing I wanted to point out, some things I can tell you is that last year we were, we found out about the National RMB Hall of Fame, which is Lamont Robinson, former Harlem Globetrotter. He’s been, this has been his vision for many years and they’ve tried to get a physical location. They’re doing it like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

They chose to be a part of our development over ⁓ Marks, Mississippi, Augusta, Georgia, Detroit, and Cleveland. So they’ll be coming in. They also have a National Gospel Hall of Fame. ⁓ We’ve hired the longest ⁓ serving CEO of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and we’re way bigger than all of them. And it’s going to be a pretty big deal when it comes to the music, ⁓ especially. ⁓

There’s plenty of opportunity, but the opportunity to the public isn’t going to be open long. So ⁓ I don’t want to sound anything but factual because, you know, I don’t even know ⁓ if anybody’s interested in anything but real estate, but you might want to take a look at it. ⁓ Because we’ve got, when we, I’ll say this, the evaluation that we’re given on the pre-IPO is probably half of what it should be because we can’t announce who’s coming in on this deal yet.

Quentin (25:58)
Absolutely.

Powers (26:11)
And as soon as we announced that our valuation is going go all up. we kind of have a number in mind. We’re going to have a hundred people locked in, locked and loaded. And they’ll be the biggest, biggest out there. And why wouldn’t they? Because we’re not just going to give them the, you know, if you think, if you think of Amazon, like a big ⁓ mall, right, which is kind of what it is, then this would be the big entertainment industry. And ⁓ by having, by having the talent and then giving them creative freedom for the innovation, everybody can do their own thing and tying everything together. It’s.

And then when you look at the people that get it, this is a sure thing. ⁓ you know, I’m not going to be on a lot of podcasts. This is actually one of the few that I’m going to be on. But I’ve always looked at Quentin. I’ve seen a number of shows and, you know, I really like your energy, man. You’re the real deal. Because I read energy like a lot of people read energy. So we can tell who’s real and who’s fake. Right. And if we can tell that, you know, I know you’re real. So that’s all that’s all I got to say unless there’s anything else. But

Quentin (26:58)
Absolutely, I appreciate that.

There you go, absolutely.

Powers (27:10)
My email is powersmiller at icloud.com. Please email me and I’ll give you my number too, 312-723-7475. ⁓

Quentin (27:10)
Gotcha, now I’m

There he is, man. Powers, Millers, listen, thank you, sir. Powers, Powers Millers. Thank you so much, for your time. I love it, man. There you go.

Powers (27:30)
I was named after my mom’s maiden name. And my middle initial is B. So they asked me once, the Uber driver said, is your

name really Powers B? And I said, yeah. And he said, are you the Powers B? I said, not yet. But I think that we’re onto something here. And it’s been great talking to you for a few minutes today. And I look forward to anybody that wants to get more information, reach out and say hello. And Quentin, I’ll be saying hello to you too. Is this it?

Quentin (27:40)
How is it being?

I’ll go. ⁓

Absolutely.

Absolutely. This is it, man. I thank you so much. Everybody tuning in, please make sure you’re subscribed so you can get more conversations just like with Mr. Powers Miller. Thank you so much. Y’all have a good one, Mr. Miller. Thank you so much, sir.