Tucson Homes for Sale with Faces of Tucson AZ with Zach Yentzer

The Faces of Tucson, and I'm super honored to be here with Zach Yenser. And you were nominated to be on The Faces of Tucson, and you were selected by committee. Great. And we're so excited to have you honored here. And I've known you for a while, and I'm like, was so excited to be able to get to interview you and ask you some of these questions. Absolutely. So, um.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And thanks to Tucson.

Yeah.

The unknown nominators.

Yeah.

Got me here.

Yeah, it's a cool project. The Face of Tucson's really been, it's fun to watch how this has been growing, and I love this program. So let's talk about why you were nominated. So the Faces of Tucson is about people who are doing and giving back to their community, and they're those people that make our community extra special. And that's something I've loved about living here my whole life, is that the people, if you ask anybody, they'll say, "Why do you live in Tucson?" And they always say, "The people." And it's true, because the people of Tucson have always been a very accepting group. They've always been a very giving group, a compassionate group. I mean, from my perspective, it's one of those cities where people want to do things for others and help our own community.

Agreed.

Yeah, and you're one of those people that has stood out. And so you were involved— so you're involved in a couple fun things to talk about, which was the 01 Spotlight, which refers to the zip code 85701.

Correct, the downtown zip code.

Yeah, where we are right now. We're at the Tucson Gallery in downtown because this was a nice quiet space we could talk. Then you also served as the president for the Menlo Association neighborhood, the neighborhood association.

4 years.

4 years, wow.

4 years.

That's a lot. And then you were on the board for Downtown Tucson Partnership.

Correct.

Yeah, that's awesome. So tell me a little bit about those, or one or all of them.

For sure, for sure. I'll start with a fun project. Kind of like this one, but for just 85701, the downtown zip code. A mutual friend of ours and I, just during COVID thought that businesses in the downtown area especially were the subject of so many things added to their plate to manage during COVID And we wanted to go around and celebrate them and spotlight them and say, how are you doing? What are the opportunities and challenges? And how can we share the word with people who may not think to come downtown and to visit your business and to say, hey, these are the amazing things going on. And they were restaurants, they were bike shops, they were, you know, kind of boutique galleries. And we just wanted to encourage people to come down and support the downtown Tucson businesses during COVID-19. And did that for free. There was nothing in it for us, just wanted to come down and, and see the businesses here. And for me, it was personal. I've worked downtown for a while. I live in a downtown neighborhood. Menlo Park Neighborhood Association is just on the other side of the I-10 and Congress freeway area. And so one of the things that was on my heart, and I'll stop after this, was, you know, when I was serving on the Downtown Tucson Partnership board as we were getting into COVID era. So I think I was on it for about a year or so through COVID. People would say, how do we get people to come down downtown? Well, you live downtown and I live downtown. There's tens of thousands of people who live downtown. And so I thought, why was the narrative based only on people who come down to downtown? There are people for whom downtown is a part of the ecosystem where they live. And so what if we spotlighted all of those things and encourage people to visit the places that really make downtown, downtown.

Right. Yeah, I know.

So it was a video project, I guess I should add that as well.

Which is awesome. We've lived and worked downtown for, geez, I don't even know how many years. It's been since it was before the streetcar was actually dug up. I remember sitting in my office looking out the road at dirt that was full of water. It was very fun.

Right.

We had our own little lake here for a while.

Right.

Yeah, so we've been with you on this excitement of watching this grow and hoping to help all these little businesses, you know, thrive down here.

Right.

And I also love that you're talking about, wait a second, there's enough people down here in these neighborhoods to actually help these businesses thrive.

Right.

If they stayed in downtown. And one of the cool things happening now is we're bringing more stuff into downtown to keep people in downtown.

That has to be the vision. Maybe this is an accidental segue into the Menlo Park side of things, but As the neighborhood president of the Menlo Park Neighborhood Association, I would meet folks who've lived in that neighborhood for generations, and they would tell me, they would say, "Zach, when I was your age," or a little younger, they said, "We would walk through downtown to go to Tucson High, and then on the way back, we'd stop at the pharmacy, and we'd pick up a pair of jeans, and we'd pick up a prescription, and then we'd walk home." And it was interesting to me because like you, I've gotten to watch the downtown renaissance. But there was a time when downtown was a piece of the day-to-day life, and I think we have to return to that for downtown to be successful. I work downtown. If downtown is only built for people like me who work here, or only built for people who come and visit it as a part of Tucson, that's great, but it's not going to bring downtown to where I think it can be, which is a place where you can again and pick up a pair of jeans and pick up a prescription, where it's an all of life environment. And I think a lot of what you're doing now is a piece of that. And my downtown experience started upstairs from where we are now. I don't think our viewers can see it, but upstairs used to be Connect Coworking. And my dad and I back in 2013, 2012 maybe, were having lunch at the Hub. And we looked across the street at the beta space for Connect Coworking and we said, we should move our company to that space. So we came over here and we were office out of Connect Coworking and the rest is history.

Well then it goes even further back because I think we're sitting in the old pharmacy. This was Martin Drug Company.

It was. And then it was Proper.

Right.

When it was a restaurant. And now it's Proper Shops.

And here we are at the Proper Shops with little, finally little retail outlets.

Yes.

Right. More coming in and we're in the Tucson Gallery which is a new project that Darren and I have taken up with Tom Heath which is really fun.

Right.

So yeah, that's very exciting. Yeah. So tell us about family. Tell us about your family. I've met your family a little bit. So you're beaming and I can see it.

Yeah.

Let's talk about family. For sure.

So my family, I've been married for 8 years. It'll be 9 years at the end of this year. I wanted to double check that because my wife is going to watch this. My wife and my mom are going to watch this and many, many others.

You're getting faster.

And I want to make sure I'm getting it right. We've been married for 8 years. We have 3 kids, 5 and under, and I don't get paid for that.

Wow. How come you're not exhausted? Are you?

Oh, I'm exhausted, but you find enough way to pump enough coffee in. No, they're amazing. My oldest is in kindergarten. My little guy is in preschool, both in TUSD schools. And TUSD, like every institution, has work to do. But we're having an incredible experience. I just want to shout out our public schools as well because we're having just an amazing experience with some great teachers who love our kids. And our little guy— our little girl is 1 and change. And my wife and I met here in Tucson in high school, and we dated in high school a little bit, and then we kind of stayed friends but weren't dating during college. And then when I came back to Tucson after that, we re-met and rekindled and I don't know, which high school?

Mountain View.

Mountain View.

Mountain View. So there's a shout out for Mountain View.

Shout out to Mountain View.

That's awesome. Okay, next question is, tell us about your current, past, or future career. What do you love most about what you do? Mm-hmm.

If I look at a theme of what I do and what I'm interested in, whether it's the O1 Spotlight, whether it's Menlo Park Neighborhood Association, or serving on the board of the Downtown Tucson Partnership, there's a kind of a community organization theme to it, of bringing people together to work on causes that they care about and to put aside our differences. And I say that not to be vanilla, because we don't want to talk politics, but there's a lot that can tear us apart. And my interest is, what can we work on that we care about? We put aside the labels and we get to work. And maybe we'll talk about Menlo Park stuff, but that was a huge theme. Bringing a lot of different people together with different priorities to develop a neighborhood plan to basically shape the next 50 years and say, we're going to have hard choices, and we're going to have hard decisions and hard conversations, but it's going to be the best thing for all of us. And so I don't know necessarily what the next— what I'll be doing in 10 years, but I think I'll be doing some work of that kind, where bringing people together to get things done.

You know, and I think of what you said, if any community of all communities, Tucson has the most, they're most capable here. These folks are the ones that can get rid of labels and say, let's work together. Let's make Tucson great. Let's make it fantastic. Let's just build it and make it better. Let's bring this downtown to thriving and have everybody stay here that lives here and have all they need. They don't have to drive any further.

That's right.

Yeah, that'll be.

One of the things that I talk about Tucson to the young people I get to connect with. And I have the privilege of connecting with thousands of young professionals a year in Tucson, and those not yet in Tucson who call me and say, "Tell me about Tucson." And I'll say, "Look, we're a growing community. We may not have all of the same assets as if you were moving from Minneapolis," as some guy who called me the other day was. I said, "But here's the pro to Tucson, and I want you to hear this." I said to him, "This is a low barrier community. You can come in and meet beautiful people who are there to help you make your big idea happen, and you can make the relationships in 6 months that'll help you do what you want to do in 6 months here that will take years somewhere else. We don't talk enough about that, and that comes back to the beauty of Tucsonans. There's something really special about that here, especially for young people.

Yeah, you know, Darren always says to everyone that when he came and visited Tucson before he made the move, that everybody in Tucson would always try to get everybody to move here. They're like, oh, you need to come move here. And it's so funny because when he started saying that, I started recognizing that everywhere, right? No matter where I would go, you'd hear somebody going, you should move to Tucson, right? Right. Because we do, we bring them in, right? Yeah, it's really, it's really awesome. Um, so tell us, uh, what are a couple of, a couple of your favorite restaurants?

So I'm, I'm a Menlo Park guy. I gotta be a homer. Yeah, Sase. I think is a great story, and it's great food. Say's started out as a food truck, and their first real big start as a non-food truck business was in Menlo Park. So Say's is a huge favorite. Man, on other parts of town, my wife and I really like Ole up on the north side.

Ole.

I think it's La Cholla and Orange Grove.

Is it, what kind of food is Ole?

It's a Mexican restaurant.

Oh, nice.

Yeah.

Good. Okay, so how long have you lived How long have you lived and worked in our community? I think you hit on that before, but for the sake of making sure our answers are all the same as all interviews. For sure, I appreciate that.

The short answer is moved to the Tucson area in 2002. We followed family out here. So I did middle school and high school here. Then I went away for college like a lot of young people do. And then I came back in 2012. And so for the last really 10, 11 years have been my most active years across many different sectors and areas in Tucson.

Nice. So who's one of the most interesting people you've met here in Tucson?

Mmm, wow, that's a great question.

Just one of them.

Besides you, right? Yeah, right.

We'll definitely go with interesting. That's a different take on interesting.

Right. Man, I'm trying to think of Um, you know, I won't just pick one person. I'll pick a group of people that I met in Menlo Park, of people who have spent generations really trying to preserve and shape the future of the community, kind of the activists and the organizers and the history there of people who would really surprise you when you dig into their history, who they are and what they care about, but people who have said we want Menlo Park to be served well and to be preserved well.

Nice.

And there's about 3 or 4 of those people I'm thinking about, but to dig into their history has been really interesting.

Nice. Okay, so if you could travel anywhere in the world right now, where would you go?

Yes. My— I'm trying to think of the name of it. I really want to go there even though I can't remember it. What is that beautiful lake in Canada? It's the famous one.

Darren's behind the camera. Darren, do you know what the beautiful lake is? In Canada? We're all speechless right now.

Maybe we'll cut to— I'll give you my second one. I spent some time in Eastern Europe in college, and I would love to go back. And I spent a lot of it kind of around the Balkans, but I would love to go north and visit Romania and Hungary and Eastern Europe, kind of the top half of it. That I didn't get to visit.

Us too.

I never made it to Western Europe. And I don't want to say it's overrated, but people who haven't been to Eastern Europe are missing out. Beautiful people, low cost of travel, beautiful spaces. I spent a lot of time in kind of the southeast. I want to do more northeast.

Yeah, us too. Favorite movie?

Favorite movie. Man.

One of them.

A Beautiful Mind.

Love it. Favorite TV show?

Favorite TV show, Friends.

Friends, ah, perfect.

Friends, I represent all of my millennials out there, right?

Wait, is it? Okay, yeah.

They're probably more Gen X now.

That's awesome.

Always Gen X, but I think millennials grew up watching that and resonate with it.

One piece of great advice you would give to people?

Yep, advice from my dad. "he who has all the answers is not up to date on the questions." Nice.

That's awesome.

And I think that applies to every area of life. If you meet someone who has all the answers, they haven't asked all the right questions.

Yeah, they're not up to date. I love that. Yes. Yeah, 'cause things do change very fast. For sure. Something on your bucket list.

On my bucket list.

Yes.

Wow, man, these are really good questions. These are really good questions. I love to travel, and I think I would like to, I just mentioned Eastern Europe, I'd love to do a Western Europe trip. I'd love to spend 10 days in France.

Mm, me too. Yeah. We just talked about that last night. Yeah. Yeah. Current or former local business that makes you feel most nostalgic about Tucson? Mm, wow.

Man, you should have given me these questions ahead of time.

I could have— We're doing round fast questions. We're doing that first. What comes to your mind?

I could have thought about it.

Business that makes you feel nostalgic about Tucson.

Yeah, man, as I'm talking, I'll probably come up with one, but I think in downtown there's been a really good adaptive reuse program where— I mean, I'll say adaptive renewal. Where there are these really old spaces that are renewed, um, and, um, I'm—

It's okay, it'll pop in your head and we'll come up, we'll get it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, if you could choose anyone that was alive, that is alive today, that can't be a relative, okay, um, with whom you would love to have lunch, who is it and where would you take them for lunch?

Wow. Wow. These are really great questions. Man, I— who is alive today?

Who's alive right now that you could interview right now?

Who is alive today?

Take them to lunch. Where would you take them?

Alive today. We're gonna have to come back to that one.

It's a big one. It is a big one. Because there's a couple of people I would love to sit down and interview. Like, I'd love to talk to— Obama, I'd love to ask him some questions. Or Oprah, I'd like to ask her some questions. And there's some crazy funny people.

There are. There are.

But we just need one, so you'll cut it. So we talked about where you see yourself in 5 to 10 years, and then, not sure, but we know that it would be community.

Community. Community building.

Yeah. Yeah. Even for friends or family, what is something interesting that most people don't know about you?

The most interesting thing people don't know about me is give me probably 5 or 7 days and Albanian is my second best language after English.

Really?

Yeah. I spent 3 years learning it in college and was doing work with the State Department. Arizona State University over in Kosovo on civic education for young people, part of democracy building on the other side of the Balkan War. Was doing language study and my thesis over there and spent 3 years learning Albanian.

How do we say hello?

Tshkemi.

Whoa, that sounds pretty— that sounds great!

It's kind of the more like what's up, hello, kind of the informal version.

Tshkemi?

Tshkemi.

Well, it's the You've got that chick down really.

That's why. It's a beautiful language. Yeah. Two nations in the world speak it, Kosovo and Albania.

Oh, wow.

There's not many of us, I guess.

That's a cool fact there, Albanian. Yeah, that's pretty neat.

That makes up for all of the other questions you asked that I had a really non-answer for.

It's okay. To be very fair, he has not seen these questions ever. I haven't.

This is the proof.

We're throwing you right in the fire, man. This is the proof. Yeah. Most beautiful place you've ever been?

Most beautiful place I've ever been. I think it would be either Belgrade in Serbia or Thessaloniki in Greece.

Oh, we missed— we spent 30 days in Greece. Well, we've been to Greece 4 times, but we went a month. We missed our friends from there too. We missed it. So we have to go. Now it's back on our list.

Spent a couple of days in Kyiv as well. Kyiv is beautiful.

Nice.

Yeah.

I love Greece. It was really fun to be there every time. Favorite month?

Favorite month is, is June. It's my wife's birthday.

Nice. That's a great answer. That was for you. Favorite holiday?

Favorite holiday?

Wife's birthday.

No, we already covered that base. Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is by far our family's favorite holiday.

What's the best single day on the calendar?

The best single day. All right, I'm going to combine a couple of things. So was it in Miss Congeniality where they ask one of the contestants, what is your favorite day or something like that? And she answered a date on the calendar, April 25th. It's my son's birthday. So April 25th.

Wow, nice. That's very good.

Combining some pop culture there for you.

Thank you. I'm trying to think back in my head. I'm like, I love that movie. But I don't remember movies.

I've watched it with you. I've only seen it once, but I know that fact.

I'm bad at remembering anything in a movie, which is really fun, 'cause when I watch it the second time, it's all like starting over. So I can, it's great. What would you rate a 10 out of 10?

What would I rate?

A 10 out of 10.

10 out of 10.

Something you'd rate a 10 out of 10. Hmm.

I'll make it Tucson related. I would rate the Monica a 10 out of 10.

Oh, that's a great new restaurant.

A great new restaurant, part of the Sicharo family.

Yeah.

Just, you don't get a lot of those kind of spaces in Tucson. Right. The way they did kind of that infill project, you feel like you're stepping into something else.

And it's got one of our, Joe Padgett, one of Tucson's favorite muralists, has a mural in there, which is really great. So we're connecting it now to this. Yes, for sure. Segue to Segallery. Segallery.

Yes. Was that the question you were asking? Did I answer the way you hoped I would?

Well, better. Okay. That's awesome.

What would you rate it 10 out of 10?

There's a lot of things that can be a 10 out of 10. Yes. Who inspires you to be better?

Oh man, who inspires me to be better? We're getting some help. There's some obvious answers. One is my wife and my family. I really want to be the best guy I can for my wife. But in the community, there's some great community servants. That I really admire and some mentors in my life here that I want to make proud.

Oh, that's sweet.

Yeah. Yeah. And some of them have even passed, and I do a lot of what I do to make them proud, even though they're not here to enjoy it.

That they carry on.

We were having fun, then I went really deep there. I can tell.

It's okay. Like, I felt that because I— there's people that crossed into my mind as soon as you said it, like those mentors. And I have been practicing I've gotta call them while they're here and tell them you've made this impression on my life and you changed my life and let them know because there's so many that have no idea what they did was some simple sentence or act of kindness and it changed you.

That happened last year. I missed a moment to call a dear mentor of mine and he passed 2 weeks later.

So here's our lesson.

You got to do it.

Yeah, you got to do it. And it's a beautiful thing to do is to say thank you.

So now back to laughing.

Okay, laughing.

I hope you have a light question.

I hope you don't make me laugh with this next question because that could be bad. Two of your favorite smells.

Two of my favorite smells. I mean, this one is a Homer Tucson answer. The creoso when it rains. You cannot beat it. As cliché as it is, I guess that would be. That'd be number 1. Number 2, I grew up sailing. I grew up in Pennsylvania, and the first third of my life was around copious amounts of water, which we don't have here. And my dad had a sailboat, a little dinghy. So I learned how to sail on Lake Nokomixon in Pennsylvania. And the smell of water, ugh. Like lake water, not just rainwater, but lakes and rivers, and you just can't beat it.

Are you a water sign?

I don't know. My birthday is in October. I'm a Scorpio and I have no idea what that means. But if you do.

No, I don't. Is it a water sign? We're hearing, we're hearing.

Yeah, breaking, it's a water sign.

All right, so finally, last question. What 3 words or 3 phrases come to mind when you think of the word home?

Safety, vulnerability, and comfort.

Very beautiful. I love vulnerability. Yeah, that is, that is about being safe. Yeah, yeah.

I read this the other day that everyone in your life except your life partner or your spouse have to love you, but you know, that life partner or your wife or your husband love you because they made a choice to. And I think that provides a lot of safety and authenticity and vulnerability that you can have at home that you can't have somewhere else.

That does. Ah, that's a great answer. All right, you redeemed yourself with the end there.

Appreciate it.

That was amazing.

We're not even gonna go back to those because I redeemed myself enough.

We're good.

Honestly, if you go back, I'm probably gonna look at you with a blank stare.

What nostalgic business. I know.

I am enjoying this though. I would love to keep chatting with you. I'm sorry the questions are—

The questions are a blast and we, Zach, you're a blast. So excited to have you here and have you on the Faces of Tucson. Thank you. And thank you for doing everything you do for us.

Thank you.

And we are very excited to see what you have in store next.

Appreciate it.

Thanks, Zach.

Thank you. Appreciate you.