A Florida entrepreneur says he’s fallen in love with St. Joseph and Michigan’s Great Southwest! As a result, Leonard Schulz is totally renovating an apartment complex in ‘Uptown St. Joe’, near the key intersection of Niles Avenue and Main Street.
Schulz tells us the ‘Uptown Apartments’, which have been quietly serving tenants at 1117 Niles Avenue since the 1970s, will soon take on an ‘upscale’ feel, catering to young professionals who have followed employment to St. Joseph or Benton Harbor, but are frustrated when they look for a nice apartment to call “home.”
There are eight one-bedroom apartments in the Uptown building. Schulz describes them as “roomy, very adequate size-wise.” However, he says, they of course need updating to appeal the the Millennials and Gen-Z tenants he’s targeting. All the apartments will be essentially the same and rent in the $1200 per month range when they go on the market late Winter or early Spring.
Schulz says infrastructure is being updated throughout the complex, including internet, security cameras and locked storage areas for each unit. Landscaping and outdoor lighting will follow in the Spring. He promises there will be a “new fresh feel” to the entire project. Schulz says there is off-street parking for each unit.
When asked about how he came to acquire the Uptown Apartments, the Palm Beach Gardens, Florida resident smiles, chuckles and shares a story.
“I was looking for a house and ended up buying the apartments. They were listed one day and I bought them by noon the next day. I was the first one in a line that formed quickly.”
Schulz said the property seemed to jump out at him from the online listings. So he quickly called his realtor, who went to the location and gave Schulz a quick “Facetime” walk-through. He decided to make an offer and by the end of the day, the deal was done.
Schulz also bought a house on Highland Avenue along the St. Joseph River, where he expects to spend the warmer weather months, while maintaining his Florida residence in the Winter. He says he never imagined himself as a “Michigander”, but developed a strong attachment to the area, built on a 30 year friendship with Randy Bettich, a financial planner and Senior Vice President at Stifel, a wealth management firm on Hollywood Road in St. Joseph Township.
Randy Bettich actually introduced us to Schulz and was eager to share the ‘long and winding road’ of their acquaintance that led Schulz to invest in St. Joe:
“Leonard and I have an interesting history. Our friendship started back in the late 1980’s. I was beginning my career as a financial advisor with A.G. Edwards & Sons in Juno Beach, Florida. I was single, flat broke, and I really didn’t have any investment patrons yet; just a phone book and tens of thousands of Floridians to “cold call” and try to convert into investment clients.
Young Leonard Schulz was the janitor in the Loggerhead Plaza office building where I was working. Leonard, a tall skinny kid armed with a backpack vacuum and a trash bag in his hand, would see me, in a suit, working the phone late each night in my office. He said if I helped him finish cleaning the rest of the building’s offices he would have a beer with me at Pedro’s Cantina next door.
A bit younger than me, Leonard had started an office and carpet cleaning business, landscape business, and sold Christmas Trees during the holidays. He was a 20-something entrepreneur for sure. Like me, broke, but working hard. We became close friends and I was even the best man in his wedding. Shortly after the wedding I moved back to Michigan to join Craig Herrington and Dave Kinney and helped found the former AG Edwards branch in St. Joseph. Leonard and I lost track of each other as we concentrated on building our businesses and raising our families.
Fast forward almost 30 years… I was at a convention at the Breakers Hotel on Palm Beach. I looked up Leonard’s office and surprised him with a visit.
The former janitor I befriended decades ago had become a partner in a successful landscape / lighting business (D. Thomas Landscape Management, LLC and Showcase Lighting, LLC) serving uber-wealthy Palm Beach and Jupiter Island residents. And the Christmas tree lot evolved into Christmas Designers, the largest Christmas decoration and installation business in Florida.
And if that weren’t enough, he and his partner built out Christmasdesigners.com of Sherman Texas. One of the largest online sellers of Christmas lights and displays in the country, with 180,000 square feet of commercial Christmas decorations and displays, for distribution nationwide.
Leonard and his wife Amy, after visiting me here in SJ several times made the investment in the apartment complex and purchased a 2nd home here on the St. Joseph River. We both enjoy reminiscing of our humble beginnings when we were scratching up nickels and dimes to get breakfast on Saturday, after we met in that empty office building 30 years ago. “
Lease information for the newly renovated Uptown Apartments can be obtained by contacting Mike Green at Greentown Coastal Realty 269-208-4139.
