Learn About JJK Places

A Different Type of Company

As a social impact enterprise involved in mission-driven real estate, JJK Places is intent on using its unique structure and public good mission to change the prevailing paradigm of how people and communities think about real estate development and developers. Not all development is inherently bad for a neighborhood, nor are all developers singularly focused on profit at the exclusion of all else.

By definition, as a social impact company legally structured as a Colorado public benefit corporation (PBC), JJK Places is different from conventional real estate developers.

JJK Places exist for one reason: to harness the power, problem-solving expertise, fiscal discipline, entrepreneurial thinking, and access to financial capital of the for-profit commercial real estate world, and collectively channel them into creating public good real estate, or better known as “social impact real estate” (or “SIRE”).  We focus 100 percent of our time and efforts only on social impact real estate projects that will produce significant public good—particularly in urban infill locations, along transit corridors, and in historically underserved communities.

PUBLIC GOOD ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Our goal is to increase the amount of affordable living options for working households and families, starting in the Denver metro area. This includes creating more “income appropriate” housing along with producing/preserving more commercial space for community-serving uses. We seek to use housing and commercial space together to breakdown obstacles impeding access to opportunity, particularly in historically underserved communities. Our company Vision Statement summarizes this goal well: Ultimately, we seek to “Eliminate barriers to possibilities.”

At JJK Places, we call this “public good entrepreneurship,” and believe it will become an increasingly more significant sector of the business environment. For many, the concept of businesses also “doing good” may be easy to accept on the surface, but when it causes a company to do business in an entirely different way, and to make decisions with multiple new priorities, the consequential question becomes, “Why do it?”

PUBLIC BENEFITS VERSUS PROFIT

Why try to create public benefits at the same time as trying to generate profit? Aren’t the two counter-productive, often presenting conflicting objectives?

We say no, they are not. The reasons for this are fourfold:

1) First, the reason to seek both economic returns and social returns is because business has the capacity to become a huge force for creating public good—to many experts, business may be our last great hope to address today’s myriad global social and environmental challenges.

2) The public and markets are rapidly causing this growing trend towards more socially conscious companies and “social impact enterprises.” Likewise, it is causing too the growth of new investment funds specializing in social impact investing. Pure and simple, more and more people want to spend their money and invest their dollars with companies that are “doing good.”

3) Therefore, if a company doesn’t want to become obsolete in the future, necessity will eventually require all businesses to be “doing good” at some level. Companies are adapting to this market-driven change; they are altering their operations, policies, even their products and services to be more socially and environmentally benefiting.

4) Lastly, there is a growing realization that the entire impact that one’s investments can make are extraordinarily large if we include all the ancillary effects, influences, and indirect implications that a sum of investment money can have above and beyond simply a financial ROI number. JJK Places recognizes this multiplier or ripple effect that when properly channeled, planned, and implemented, mission-drive real estate can have dramatic effects on the lives of many people. It is why our business model is not just about producing space to rent or sell as an end product (what most convention developers produce), but rather, we view real estate as a tool that can produce a different end product, namely increased opportunity, community, and social equity.

Some believe that one day the norm in business will be for all companies to be pursuing public good along with profit.

But until all companies are doing it, we are fine being on the forefront of a new movement, and to be positioned to be leading that charge in metro Denver, and beyond.

JJK PLACES “6 RULES FOR SIRE”

JJK Places maintains that there should be six (6) characteristics of social impact real estate. We call them the “6 Rules for SIRE.” JJK Places believes these should be promoted, maintained, and delivered as part of all authentic social impact real estate projects. The “6 Rules for SIRE” are:

1. RESPECT: Respect and listen to the community, we are guests in their neighborhood.
2. COLLABORATION: Can only be accomplished through the successful cooperation and collaboration of a large cohort of parties who traditionally conflict in conventional real estate transactions.
3. IMPACT: A significant new positive impact must be made to help address an existing community’s challenges.
4. EQUAL PRIORITIES: Planning, design, and implementation of a project must prioritize existing members of a community, health and wellness, social interaction, the environment, and surrounding neighborhood physical context as criteria equal to generating economic returns.
5. DIVERSE CAPITAL: Harnesses the power of diverse capital sources and directs them collectively into creating public good.
6. LONG-TERM VALUE: Must deliver long-term value for all stakeholders.