9/11/2022

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Hello. I'm Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to, or watching, Radio Maine. Today, I have with me a dear friend who I'm really excited to have in the studio. This is Emily McConnell, who is a partner at the New Height Group. Thanks for coming in today.

Emily McConnell:

Hi, Lisa. It's nice to see you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I am just blown away by all the changes that you've made in your life over the last maybe five years. Does that sound about right?

Emily McConnell:

Five or six years since I've left the magazine. Yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes, exactly. You and I knew each other back in the days of Maine Media Collective and your position there was more financial if I'm remembering correctly.

Emily McConnell:

My position there was to do anything that needed to be done. It was very much a jack of all trades type role.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

But you are now doing something really different, correct?

Emily McConnell:

Yes, I've moved into real estate development in real estate sales.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So let's back up a little bit. You're from Maine.

Emily McConnell: 

Yes, I'm originally from Belgrade Lakes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I'm up practicing in that area as a physician and I know that it's just a beautiful part of the world. How did you make your way down to Portland?

Emily McConnell:

Portland was always a big city when I was growing up. It always had that pull for me.  I left Maine to go to college after high school and was in upstate New York for college, but I always knew when all of my friends from college were moving to New York or Boston that I wanted to land back in Maine. I just wasn't really sure where so when college was over, I moved to Belfast. I worked for MB and that then became Bank of America.  Then in 2008, when the financial crisis hit, my job as a recruiter and hiring manager for a bank went away and it was the perfect opportunity to move to Portland. So I jumped at it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

So when you were growing up, did you have a sense that you wanted to do something in development or that you wanted to do something in recruiting? What was your sort of life path?

Emily McConnell: 

I don't really think that I had a clear image of what I wanted to do when I grew up. But, now that I do this work, I can recall things from my childhood that sort of clicked and made sense, like my dad sold windows and doors. I remember him bringing home blueprints and spreading them out on the table and like looking through the blueprints and getting really excited about all of the, you know, this is how a bathroom is laid out and this is the kitchen and thinking in my head how to follow through a floor plan and imagine how you might live in a house like that. So looking back on things like that, now I can see that this work really fits with what I like to do.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So that's an interesting kind of idea, I come from a family of lawyers, teachers, doctors. And you come from a family where somebody put something in front of you, there was a visual and somehow it kind of imprinted on my mind and ended up impacting my future state.

Emily McConnell: 

I really liked the imagination part of it. You could take these two dimensional plans and think about a three dimensional building and how it would work. And I was always impressed that architects and designers could imagine something and then put it down on paper and it could be constructed that way. So I think that's what really drew me to that sort of thing. And now it works with my project management and strengths in that field.

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

So as a partner in the New Height Group, tell me what that means.

Emily McConnell:

So the New Height Group is a small company of only four people.  We develop real estate in and around Portland, Maine. So we've built three condominium buildings in Portland, and we've done some additional work in other communities in Maine. We're currently working on the redevelopment of the Mercy Hospital building on State street.  Mercy built a new hospital and moved to a new location and we're taking the building constructed in the 1940s and turning it into much needed workforce housing in Portland.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, that's actually very interesting to me because I had one of my children at Mercy hospital. 

Emily McConnell: 

It's really hard to talk to anyone in Maine without hearing about a Mercy Hospital connection.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So I imagine you've been on the site and you've walked around. So as you're walking around, are you kind of having the sense of babies being born and people living lives and the nuns and the people taking care of people?

Emily McConnell: 

Definitely when it was an operating hospital and during the first couple of months now the interior demolition is nearly complete. The exterior demolition is complete. So it doesn't quite have that same feeling. You can sort of see it starting to take the shape of an apartment building.

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

So how does that feel? I'm so interested in this because just for example, on our property, we took down a bunch of trees and it made me really sad because there are trees and the birds don't have a place to live anymore, that sort of thing. But then on the other side, I'm thinking, okay, but something else is going to go there and more trees will grow up around it and something new will happen. So as you're working through this process and bringing new things to life, do you have any emotions around it or is it just kind of a business feeling? 

Emily McConnell: 

It's more of a business feeling to be honest. I mean, Mercy, Northern Light Mercy Health, made the decision to build themselves a new hospital. A building constructed in the forties just does not have the modern amenities that a hospital needs. So they were really looking for a partner to make sure that this really prominent building in Portland was repurposed in the way that would best serve the community. The housing crisis in Portland has been a critical issue for a number of years. And we knew that in order to convince Northern Light Mercy Health that we were the people to sell the building to, we would need to convince them that it would make an impact on the housing problem.

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

Well, that's actually pretty exciting.

Emily McConnell: 

It's very exciting. And in addition to the apartments that will go in the hospital themselves, we're also selling a couple of parcels to community housing of Maine to build affordable apartments for seniors and families. So a hundred affordable apartments, plus the market rate apartments in the hospital.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Do you ever get pushback from people who maybe delivered their babies at mercy or remember the good old days or have thoughts about development in Portland?

Emily McConnell:

Yes. There are a lot of thoughts about development in Portland and we hear all of them.  Developers are agents of change and people don't always like change. It's always hard. So that is just a part of the conversation. And I think that if you are going to do this work, you just have to develop a little bit of a thick skin about it and try to understand where people are coming from. People are coming from a place of being concerned that the place they love is changing and helping people understand that the changes that we're making can actually benefit the community instead of gentrifying or destroying. It can be all the difference in getting the neighborhood on your side when you're doing a project like this.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I actually really love that because I know that a lot of times we think about change management, which is kind of project oriented. You lay out the steps, you achieve the goals and if you can achieve all the things you need to do along the way, then you'll get to the other side. But there is actually an emotional component to it. There's a completely change leadership thing that you actually have to engage

Emily McConnell: 

People feel so connected to where they live and their neighborhoods. A lot of people that live in Portland have been there for their entire lives. So I have nothing but empathy for that. That being said, we do need to make some changes and we do need to make Portland into a place where people feel welcome and feel like they can afford to live there. To feel like they can live in a place where they can walk to work and easily manage their day to day. So that means more housing.

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

Yeah. So, you can simultaneously validate where they're coming from and also say, but wouldn't you want a place to live if you were a new person coming to Portland? If this were you 50 years ago wouldn't you want to feel welcome too? 

Emily McConnell: 

Portland's having a real moment and it feels like that moment has been going on for quite a number of years now, but it doesn't seem to be slowing down at all. So I think that one of the ways that we can capitalize on that is to make sure that we have enough housing for people who want to live here.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That is something that I think we don't often consider. I know that in some places, if you're a teacher, you actually have to drive in from out of town to do your job. Especially in some of the communities where there isn't affordable housing, it makes it impossible for you to actually build a life where you're working. So what you're describing is incredibly important. 

Emily McConnell:

I think that's especially true in Maine's coastal communities where real estate prices have benefited from the bump that we've seen over the last few years and are maybe not affordable to people who live and work in a community like that. So taking advantage of the programs that are in place to finance development of housing that employ workforce is a critical part of that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

So as part of affordable housing, are you also working with the possibility that you might be bringing new Mainers into Portland and giving them a place to live?

Emily McConnell: 

So the New Height Group does not have any affordable housing projects right now. We are working with a non-profit housing developer community, Housing of Maine, on those aspects. So I think that they probably work with those populations, but it's not something I have expertise in.

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

Well, I mean, just because affordable housing isn't something that is being worked on, it doesn't mean that new Mainers of some sort might not come to live in the places that you're putting out there. Really just the idea that you're welcoming people of all sorts to this place that you're developing for them.

Emily McConnell: 

We really want to make sure that Portland has a range of housing choices. So for sale and for rent at all points in the market. It's all needed, it's all necessary, it has to be built. And so even if we're not doing the affordable portion of it, it's part of the conversation and part of the overall plan for the Mercy Hospital site.

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

So when you went from working at Maine Media to doing the work you're doing now, that was actually a pretty big decision for you because you essentially became an independent contractor.

Emily McConnell: 

It's true. It was a leap to go from having a regular paycheck and health insurance to not having either of those things. But I had some great support. The New Height Group immediately hired me for about 50% of my time, which gave me enough of a safety net that I felt like I could make the leap and leave the magazines. And I have a great partner who told me that no matter what we would figure out the financial part of it. So that gave me the confidence to take the step.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Was there something that kind of prompted you to say, you know what, I think I've reached this place where I want to take that leap, I want to make this big change in my life, I have the faith that this is going to move in a direction that is going to work for me.

Emily McConnell:

I don't know that there was a singular event that made that happen, but I worked at the Maine Media collective for about seven years. So I just sort of reached the point where I felt like I had learned it and I wanted to learn something new and completely different.

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

So for people who are kind of making this decision and going from a place of somewhat comfort- you're describing a level of knowledge, a level of confidence to a place of the unknown. I mean, are there people that talk to you about doing this sort of thing for themselves? And do you give them advice that kind of helps carry you through?

Emily McConnell: 

No but, if someone were to ask me that, I think what I would say is be open to different possibilities. You may have a plan for what you'd like to do and what you want to do, but that plan may not be exactly where you land. So be flexible and open and come from a place of, yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

Give me an example of one of those possibilities that kind of emerged for you. That was unexpected.

Emily McConnell:

When I left Maine Media Collective I expected that I would be spending at least half of my time doing bookkeeping for small businesses. But it turns out that was great as sort of a way to bridge the gap but not long term what I wanted to be doing. So I had this idea that my career would be split between real estate and administrative consulting. And instead it just became all consumed with real estate, which is much more fun.

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

But that's really interesting because still in your mind you said, okay, well I'm going to hang onto this thing that I know how to do. And it is sort of a place of safety to do that for about 50% of the time. But it didn't take long to kind of push past that place and realize that you really need to fully commit yourself to that next phase.

Emily McConnell: 

And that the work that I was doing in real estate development was more engaging for me, more fun. It felt like what I should be doing. Whereas on the other side I would do my administrative bookkeeping work and be like, man, I would rather be doing anything else. It was the feeling that I had while doing both things that led me to say, I really would like to spend most of my time doing this and not as much time doing that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

So I find that fascinating because you wouldn't necessarily have known that you didn't have that feeling until you started doing something that gave you a different feeling.

Emily McConnell:

Exactly.

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

I think a lot of people just get on a path and they keep doing the same thing and they keep having the same feeling, but they wouldn't know any different because there isn't another opportunity to have a different experience. But you made it possible to have that yourself. Did you have a sense at some point like, I know what this feels like over here, but maybe there's something else.

Emily McConnell: 

I don't know if it was ever clear in my head that way, but I think that when I started doing real estate development work, it really clicked for me. I felt like I was using the skills that I really enjoyed and the things that I was good at. But I didn't get as much joy from being less used. So it felt like a good fit for my personality and the sort of life that I wanted to lead.

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

So what are those skills? Organization communication?

Emily McConnell: 

I work directly with a lot of the buyers and the end owners of our condominium buildings or condominium units. So that sort of customer service sort of people pleasing thing is a part of it as well. I really like working with people who have high expectations and then meeting those expectations.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So that's a very front-facing community oriented way of living. As opposed to if you're doing bookkeeping, I'm assuming that's more of a back office. Not necessarily interfacing quite as much with the public. Did you know that you enjoyed doing that other front facing piece when you first stepped into the development side?

Emily McConnell: 

I developed that skill while working at the Maine Media Collective. I have never considered myself a salesperson, but one of the philosophies of that organization was that everyone is in sales. The sales that I was doing were things like getting customers to pay their bills on time. It just changed the way that I looked at it. Sales doesn't have to be like, buy this thing today. It can just be the way that you engage people in what you're doing and bring them into believing that what you have to offer is valuable. I just took that in a different direction by moving over to real estate sales. 

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

So how does one develop those skills?

Emily McConnell: 

I have no idea.

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

That you've been doing it.

Emily McConnell:  

Yes, I think that it's hard to say how, it's not like exercise where you're like, I do this exercise and I get stronger. It's less direct than that. That's a tough question.

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

I've thought a lot about this myself and I know that in the work that I do, I have absolutely needed to step into a place of discomfort and uncertainty. A lot of us, in my case I'll say, tend to be more introverted. I like to hang out by myself and read my books and I get my energy that way. But I also like people, so I've needed to keep stepping into that place of discomfort over and over and over again. It is a little bit like exercise for me and that the more I practice it, the better I feel I get. So I'm just wondering if you've had a similar experience or if you've been able to kind of dissect it in your mind.

Emily McConnell: 

I think that I've always been warm and personable. Connecting with people in a conversational way is something that comes naturally to me. That can be useful in developing those trusting relationships where you meet someone one day and show them a floor plan and say, this is what's going to be built. Then you work with them over the next 18 months while that plan becomes a reality. You build trust and build a relationship so that when you get to the point where you're walking through and on closing day, turning over the keys to their new condomini, you know they have faith and trust that you will deliver the product that you said you would.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So again, it does kind of come back to relationship building. It is interesting. You've pointed out that sales is something that I know is thought of as more transactional. Where it's okay, I'm going to go in, I'm gonna buy a car and milk. I'm going to leave and have a car and milk, but we are describing a much higher level. It's really the working with people to create value in their life that they are willing to exchange money for. 

Emily McConnell: 

Right. I mean, for most people buying a home is the largest purchase they're going to make. It shouldn't be transactional. You should purchase it from someone that you have confidence in and believe will do the work correctly and will stand by it in the end. 

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

I completely agree that when it comes to real estate, it should not be transactional. It should be a relationship. At the same time, there's all these technical aspects. I mean, when you went back into this work, you actually had to go and get your license, I'm assuming, and do all kinds of studying for it. It's a both and kind of situation. You have to have a lot of different skills in a lot of different areas.

Emily McConnell: 

I spent the first few years doing what I'm doing without any sort of real estate license and just working on the development side of things. Then it became clear that was probably a good thing to sort of have in my back pocket. So I could take advantage of some of the other opportunities in the real estate world that come up. It's not anything close to what you need to do to become a doctor or a lawyer or anything like that. It's a pretty simple class but it does involve learning a bunch of new material and taking a test.

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

But you're raising something that for me is really important. In some ways becoming a doctor or a lawyer, the fact of the clear path makes the process easier. I mean, it's hard. I'm not gonna discount that, but the fact is that what you need to do at most steps along the way, if you do this, then this, then this, and at the end you get a degree and then you can go for a job. What you’re describing, I know that there are some skills I need, but there's not a class to take those skills. Then I'm going along the path. Then I need some technical information. I'm going to go in that direction. So you really do have to continually assess what is necessary for you and what is necessary for the work that you want to do.

Emily McConnell: 

Yeah. I think in this world, if you're waiting for someone to tell you what to do, it's not going to go according to plan. This is the sort of thing where you need to really say I would like to advance so I'm going to do an additional course on this or learn about this new piece of machinery or material in building.

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

So in this world, it sounds like if you wait to have permission from someone you're probably going to be waiting a long time.

Emily McConnell: 

Or if you wait for someone to tell you, these are the exact steps you need to take to be successful. It's really a matter of figuring out what that is for you and your strengths and deciding to do it on your own.

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

Yes, that's actually a great point too, if you follow somebody else's steps, you may end up where somebody else ended up and that's not actually where you want to be.

Emily McConnell: 

Right. I mean, everyone sort of has to forge their own path in this world.  In a world built on relationships, everyone else has their relationships set up already and you can't poach them. So you need to figure out how to set up your own business and create your own strategy.

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

I love teachers. My mom is a teacher, I work with a lot of teachers, so I'm not thinking about the educational system, but do you think that education allows enough for that idea of setting your own path and having the ability to kind of assess what you need in your own life?

Emily McConnell: 

I feel lucky that my education did.  I went to a great high school in Maine and I went to a liberal arts college. So really I think my education was more about learning how to think critically and communicate well, and those are foundations that you can build any career on. I feel lucky that my education did provide that sort of foundation.

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

Well, good. So I'm glad you were digging the teachers. I'm glad you brought that back around so people who are listening are like, where is she going with this? Okay. Hmm. Well, I bring this up because I feel like sometimes what I have felt in my own education is that there is kind of you do this, then do this. This is what's important, pass this test, study for the test. Sometimes I wonder if by teaching to the test, we come out on the other side with such a structured way of thinking about things that maybe it doesn't allow for creativity. But you're suggesting the opposite in your case. It seems like you were able to come out on the other side and your thought process got you to where you are now. 

Emily McConnell:

I think that there are a lot of tools available now that aren't necessarily what you would think of as education, but that can be educational. Even YouTube is such a great resource for learning how to do new things. So it doesn't need to be like a class and a test. It can be, I want to learn how to fix this thing. So I'm going to watch a YouTube video about how to do it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

Yes. That is a great point. I had it in my frame, the old fashioned way of getting an education and what you're describing is a more broad based approach to education. That actually is really important because it's self-directed. If you feel like you want to learn how to have difficult conversations or argue more effectively, there are YouTube videos that you can watch about how to do that.

Emily McConnell:

I'm not going to say how effective they are, but I think that education can really be in your own hands and how much you want to learn is up to you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

So maybe the idea is, we've provided this educational structure at the earlier levels of your life, but then over time you start augmenting. Bringing things in from the outside that actually makes sense to you and never fully relying solely on somebody else's way of approaching things. Using that more as a kind of launching place.

Emily McConnell:

I remember there, the motto of my elementary school, Belgrade Central School, was lifelong learning and I didn't really know what that was. But now I think back on it and it's always willing to learn something new, no matter how old you are. So I hope to continue to do that forever.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, that's actually a really big motto for an elementary school. Did you look at that like I'm six, what does lifelong mean at the time? 

Emily McConnell:

Lifelong felt like 20 whole years at that point.

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

Exactly. And 30 was like, 'Well, those things are almost over by then.' That's really interesting. The reason we brought you on, in addition to just knowing you for a very long time, is that you actually do bring art into some of the work that you do as a developer, as you're working with people and kind of bringing their homes to a new level. Tell me about that connection with the Portland Art Gallery and the artwork that you've helped people to choose?

Emily McConnell: 

So I have recommended Portland Art Gallery to a number of condo buyers. Often people are either moving here from another place and the style of their old home doesn't match the style of their new home. So they need to completely start from scratch. Or maybe this is a second home and they need to buy some additional things to fill it out. But regardless, I think that the way that we approach design is that we want our, we want the homes that we build to feel welcoming and inviting, and like you are inviting the outside in. That there isn't any sort of this division between your living space and the outside world that those are connected to. So, a lot of our projects feature large scale windows and lots of glass, which can be a challenge because then where do you hang your art? So I've found that having a place to send people can be helpful in sort of filling those hard to fill nooks and crannies where you want to really display something that elevates your decor. But it may not be like a standard, you know, painting.

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

Do you think that working with the Maine Media Collective, which involved the magazine Maine home design, gave you and kind of expanded your sense of the importance of the visual when it came to home building, creating, selling, developing?

Emily McConnell: 

Absolutely. I think that I sort of think of a real estate listing in a more editorial way than some other realtors do. I like the photographs to feel like you're looking through a magazine and not looking at a real estate listing. So I work with some photographers that also do magazine editorial work because they have that eye that works well.

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

And this piece that we have behind us is a Dietlind Vander Schaaf, and clearly it's very abstract in nature. Do you have a sense that people, when they're looking at art in the buildings that you are creating homes with them, do you have a sense that they are more abstract or does it kind of depend upon the person that you're working with? 

Emily McConnell: 

Totally depends on the person. And I also think it depends on whether they're full-time residents or not.  I think some folks that spend time away and enjoy Maine for part of the year, like to have that more Maine landscape feeling in their art.  But it really is such a personal decision depending on, you know, the owner.

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

And how about in your own life? I mean you've done this huge professional transformation of self over the last five to six years or so. Have you made any other transformations in your own life because you were saying part of why you did this, is it kind of was more in sync with the life you want to lead. Are you now living that life and what does that look like for you?

Emily McConnell: 

I love my life. I feel very lucky every day.  I have been able to sort of take some of what I loved about working at Maine Home and Design and some of what I love about the design and development work and make improvements to my own home, which has been really nice. I think that I like the idea of my home always being a work in progress.  I grew up in a house that my parents, you know, built when I was five and we had plywood subfloors for the first, like seven years. We lived there because it was a work in progress all the time. And to this day, there are little projects around the house. So I have always felt like you can live in a place that is a project. It is so satisfying to complete a task. We put down hardwood floors this year, and that was, you know, rolling up and getting our hands dirty and doing that. Then at the end you just have this magnificent sense of accomplishment that you just did something to make your home better.

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

And it sounds like you've been kind of doing the same thing with yourself over the past five to seven years. You've been pulling up all the rugs and you've been looking at the things that are underneath and you're sanding it down and it feels like you've just emerged into this whole new person, this whole new being.

Emily McConnell: 

It's still me but I've gone through a lot of change in the past year.  I've figured out diet and exercise for maybe the first time in my life. So I feel better about myself. And yes, I'm more excited now than ever for what the years ahead bring. I feel like I'm in a good spot.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I really love that because it is incredibly difficult to actually get to that place and then to actually live in that place of figuring it out. I'm walking around on the sub floor for all this amount of time and are we going to come out to the other side with a nice product. I think that requires quite a lot of, not only faith, but also hard work. I mean, you just have to show up everyday. You're like, all right, I'm going to keep hammering on the nail. I'm gonna keep, you know, painting the spot that needs to get painted. That's a lot, some people give up easily and you are not one of those people.

Emily McConnell: 

Not now but I have plenty of times before. I just feel like at this point in my life, I don't have much more time to waste. I just want to dig in and get to the good stuff immediately. So yes, it's interesting because I agree that I've changed a lot and become in a lot of ways, like a different version of myself, but to me it just still feels like me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, that's good, right?

Emily McConnell: 

Yes. I think that's critical.

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

I mean, that is an interesting piece. At least it has been for me. And I don't want to speak for you, as you're doing all these kinds of revisions and in time you are kind of understanding what it is that you want out of your life. That what you're doing is you're actually also peeling back layers and you're just returning more to the kind of central core of yourself. This idea that you're eventually kind of getting back to that place where you're standing in front of your elementary school looking at the lifelong learning idea. That you're not really any different than who you ever were. You're just more of that.

Emily McConnell: 

Hmm. I like that. Yeah. More Emily.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

More Emily. Well, I like that too. And it's really been a pleasure to talk to you today. 

Emily McConnell: 

Thanks Lisa, you too. 

Lisa Belisle:

If there are people who want to reach out who are thinking, “oh, I'd really like to work with Emily on a new home or a new project” then how can they find you?

Emily McConnell: 

So EmilyNewHeightGroup.com is my email. We have a website and you can also find me at Vitals Real Estate Group in Portland.

Dr. Lisa Belisle: 

Very good. Well, I encourage you to reach out to Emily McConnell, who is a partner at New Height Group, and really kind of experience some of the brilliance that is Emily, because clearly she has pulled together a lot of really interesting elements to bring this newest version of herself to the world. And I appreciate the time talking with you today. 

Emily McConnell: 

Thank You, Lisa.