(upbeat music)
- Yeah, that's right $4 million.
That's right, $4 million.
I don't even know what to say about it,
but the fact is,
is that Elvis was the very first enclosure
that we put into the Reptarium three years ago.
That's right, three years ago
we started off and I remember this enclosure costing us
like, a couple thousand dollars.
And I remember the entire first Reptarium costing
hundreds of thousands of dollars and thinking, wow,
I can't believe that I'm actually gonna do that.
And will it actually work?
And the fact is,
is that it was amazing.
And it gave us the opportunity to do Reptarium 2.0,
where we spent a ton of money expanding into that area,
making enclosures that cost
instead of a couple or two or $3,000
up to $40,000.
But now this next expansion
started off with the fact
that I thought $1.5 million,
I had budgeted for the expansion.
And then very soon I realized that
I wasn't even close to that number.
Come on, buddy.
No food. (chuckles)
Jeffrey is absolutely amazing.
And really when I realized $1.5 million,
wasn't going to be enough
was when I met with my friend,
Steve Bash, and we started talking
about aquariums and how expensive things were
and that the actual aquarium itself was gonna
probably be a million or a million too,
just for the aquariums and the filtration.
So that obviously met my budget
of $500,000 over that or $300,000 over that,
wasn't gonna be enough to build the rest
of the building out,
including expanding the Reptarium side of it.
So basically, I knew my budget was gonna be
a lot more and that's around June time
when we realized that hey,
maybe it's going to cost
about $2 1/2 million,
a million dollars over budget
before literally I had even one penny spent.
And the big thing was is that the building itself
kept getting a little bit more crazy, right?
We wanted to do things bigger, better.
You know, I don't wanna do it twice.
I want to do it once
and I want to do it the right way.
So I didn't have what it was gonna cost
to actually build the building yet.
But I thought maybe a million dollars
was gonna be enough,
maybe 1.2 at the very most
for the actual infrastructure of the building itself.
And then the other part of the budget,
that 1.3 million maybe up to 1.5 million
would do the actual aquarium and the expansion
of the reptile side.
(upbeat music)
Mike, don't you bite my hand!
Don't bite my fingers, you little monkeys you!
I know you guys are so excited about getting fed.
Diddy and Dixie are amazing,
but you guys may have known that
things are kind of crazy in the world
when it comes to building and with material costs
and labor costs and everything like that.
So I really thought that in my head
that that budget was gonna be plenty good.
Well, yesterday I got my first estimate back
of what the actual build-out was gonna be
for the actual building.
Again, the front, the upstairs, you know,
all this stuff, you know,
the building part, not the actual aquariums,
not the enclosures, not any of that type of stuff.
Just the actual infrastructure
to actually build so that we can put the aquarium on.
Obviously we need a lot of steel
to support the weight and you guys are so crazy.
Come here, Dixie, come on, girl,
come on all the way up here.
I love you so much.
Well, I tell you what,
it blew my mind.
Now, granted, I've only gotten one quote.
I'm going to talk to some other things,
see if I can save some money somewhere other,
but let's just say that it was over $2 million.
That's right. To do it the way I want to do it.
Which to me is the only way I'm going to do it,
is to do it all the way, right?
I'm definitely not gonna do it halfway
and then be disappointed a year or two from now.
Go, gosh, I really wish I would've spent
the extra money because then,
I'd be totally bummed out.
But listen, $2 million.
It's more than my original budget,
just for the building.
And that has nothing to do with the aquariums.
That's nothing to science.
It has nothing to do with the reptile experience.
You gotta remember,
even buying the fish and buying the reptiles
that are gonna go in,
It's gonna cost.
I've been buying some reptiles already.
But the fact is,
is that I have a lot more to go, you know?
And then the fish I have to buy all of those.
I mean, it is crazy.
And that's why now
I think the budget may be over $4 million.
And you guys know that I don't care about money.
I don't care about being broke.
I don't care about any of that.
I just want to fulfill the dreams. Right?
And I can see this dream so much,
but I'm gonna be honest with you.
I need your guys' help.
I'm gonna ask you guys for a few different things.
First thing I'm going to ask you
is down in the comments.
Let's talk. What do you think of this?
I mean, is this just out of control?
Is it silly to leverage everything
and literally risk
everything I've gained my whole life,
risk it on this expansion?
Is it worth it?
Am I going crazy
to think it's going to happen?
I mean, I need some advice, guys.
I need you guys to tell me what you think.
If you were me right now and things are going well.
I mean, things are going really well right now.
Do you just stay the course and keep going well,
or do you risk it all and do something and live your dreams?
The thing is guys,
I don't mind if I fail.
What I do mind is not trying and wondering
if I should have done it my whole life.
This is a dream I want to come through,
but I need your advice.
I mean, tell me what you guys think.
Is this just crazy?
I mean, again, even spending $2 million
with $2 1/2 million,
I thought it was absolutely crazy,
but I thought,
well, you know what?
What's the worst that happens.
You know? I can figure that out right?
When you're getting into this number.
It's insanity.
I mean,
we don't wanna get the price
of entrance being so high that people can't afford.
We want to keep it cheap,
like we always have done.
That's a lot of people that have
to come through the door
just to get our money back,
let alone make any money on it.
It's, I don't know.
Let me know what you guys think.
I need your advice guys,
in the comments,
please let me know what you think.
(upbeat music)
Now listen, guys.
I could literally do one of four things here,
to be totally honest with you.
The first one I could do is nothing.
I could just say, you know what?
This just isn't gonna happen.
I have a problem with doing nothing, right?
You guys know that when I wanna do something,
I wanna do it.
And I don't wanna ever think what if
I would have done it and I didn't do it,
but I do have to say that is an option.
Now number two,
would be to actually,
do just a small expansion of the Reptarium.
Keeping in mind guys,
that I can't do the expansion out to the parking lot
and all that type of stuff.
And then later do the next stage,
it's gotta all be in one shot, right?
So it's not like I can do,
double the Reptarium
and then do the aquarium here in a year or two
or something like that.
It's gotta be the building part has
to be all or nothing.
Now I can expand into the BHB area somehow,
and do a little expansion on the Reptarium side.
But again,
I don't know that I really like that idea
because it's really not gonna solve
a lot of my issues.
The biggest issue being
a giant enclosure for Salt and Pepper,
the second one being,
adding an otter exhibit.
So I don't know that I can achieve that
with a small expansion.
The third option that I could do,
is to actually put this off a year, right?
Think about like next year start it,
maybe prices come down a little bit,
gives me an opportunity to raise some more money.
So on like that,
that's definitely a possibility.
And then of course the fourth option
is spend the $4 million
and actually do the whole thing.
Figure out how to raise the funds and get
to a point where I can do it
and just go for it and say,
you know what, whatever happens happens.
And if it doesn't work out,
then hey, I at least tried,
and I'll know forever that it actually worked out.
And like I mentioned, guys,
I don't mind losing.
I don't mind going forward
and then failing on it.
But I don't know,
I don't think it's going to be a fail.
Again, I need your advice down in the comments.
Do you think that there's a chance it could fail?
I mean, basically we have to put
about a hundred thousand people a year
through the aquarium and the Reptarium
to make it financially at all viable.
Right now we do between 35 and 40,000 people.
So we have to more than double.
But again, I've always said
there's probably 10 times the amount
of people that would wanna go to an aquarium,
not to mention,
we can be open five or six days a week at the aquarium,
where we only open three days a week at the Reptarium.
So I don't know,
let me know what you guys think.
Those are the four options.
Let me know which one you would do,
if you were me.
All right.
For the next part that I could use your help on, guys.
And this is always difficult for me, right?
Is that I need some money.
You know, I need to do it.
Number one, maybe there's someone rich out there.
One of you guys is watching.
You're like, I got so money.
I can help you out Brian,
or maybe you've got an uncle or a parent.
Whatever, if there is,
please reach out to me.
You can hit me up on any of my websites,
and you can email me,
because listen,
it's gonna cost a lot.
And I don't wanna really borrow the money
from the bank if I don't have to,
but I could use your help.
The other thing is that
I think I'm gonna set up a series of GoFundMe pages.
As a matter of fact, the links will be in the description
and rather than set up one GoFundMe page
for the entire project,
cause that's kind of crazy,
I think maybe you could be really specific,
like let's say you really want that stingray tank.
You could actually donate
to the stingray tank or the shark tank,
or the otter fund or you know,
Salt and Peppers expansion,
or bringing RJ up,
or whatever the case may be.
So rather than having one GoFundMe page
with a $4 million, whatever,
or $2 million I need to raise,
maybe I'll break it down into eight or 10 GoFundMe pages
for someone that actually wants
to support what I want to do in a specific way.
Keeping in mind,
I do not want your money if you can't afford it.
Do not go without food to help me out,
do not take away from your bills to help me out.
Don't even take away from your vacation fund
to help me out.
Only if you have extra money
and you could do it,
keeping in mind,
this may take a year or two before we're done.
So I don't want you
to think that you're gonna donate
a hundred dollars and then I'm gonna be up and running
in six months.
Because from the start of construction till we open
is probably gonna be in phases,
but it's probably gonna take 12 to 14 months,
and we may not even be able to get started
for another 5, 6, 7 months.
I'm not a hundred percent sure,
but I will go ahead and do that.
And I will tell you this,
if for some reason we don't do the expansion,
I will refund every dollar of you guys.
Minus of course,
the couple percent that GoFundMe takes away,
but I'll give your money back.
I'm not gonna take your money
and do something else with it.
So let me know if that's okay.
I really dreaded even bringing this to you guys
because I don't like asking for money for things.
But if you guys believe in it,
if you guys believe in my mission
and you believe in just kind of supporting me
and having this kind of come to a dream come true,
then do it.
If you don't, then don't.
I don't want your money if you can't afford it,
if it's not expendable money.
And again, who knows,
maybe there's someone really wealthy
that can help me out with this.
If not, you know, I'll figure it out,
one way or another,
I'm gonna figure this thing out
because I believe in following your dreams.
With that being said,
the next step in the process,
beyond everything that we've done now,
is to actually meet with the city,
which I'm about to go do right now.
And this will be the first official meeting
with my architects, the city,
the plans where we sit down and we actually talk
about the feasibility,
and then we're gonna find out
what the city has to say.
So far our conversations have all been really positive.
The city supports us a tremendous amount,
but this is the first official meeting.
So what I'm gonna do is I'm taking off.
I'm gonna leave you with the crew
for a couple of minutes.
I'll be back in an hour, hour and a half.
And I'll tell you how the city meeting goes.
- I just got to work.
- [Mike] Here, do your dog training.
- Okay.
We're gonna put the harness on Waffles here,
who doesn't really seem to mind it right now.
- [Mike] You didn't even get
the retractable leash.
- Oh, you're right.
All right, Let's bring him outside.
(Lips pop)
- All right, guys.
Ohh, ohh, ohh (laughter)
- Never seen this lizard outside before.
They said that he liked to be outside.
Like the pictures that he sent us and stuff.
It was pictures of him outside on a leash and harness.
- Are we putting this in?
The harness came off of him a little bit.
- [Jay] And?
- And now he's in the brush.
So he feels like he's cornered.
He's not cornered,
look it, we're outside,
but yeah,
Mike's gonna have to get him.
- Why is this always Mike?
This was your stupid- - Cause it-
- This is what we talk about in the podcast
and all the other blogs,
you come up with this stupid ass idea.
- Yeah, and other people fulfill them.
- That's fair.
- Channel seven news, oh Jeez.
Good job, Mikey.
I got the tail for you.
- [Mike] Here we go.
- (laughing) Can we just end it right there?
We just didn't think this one through.
All right guys,
So we're putting waffle back in.
I mean, honestly it really- - you probably should have
(Mike laughing)
- I mean, honestly it really went great.
He loved being outside.
Yeah, he just didn't really wanna
stay in the harness which is-
- Jay, work your magic.
- Yeah, you guys will see the edit later.
- Just got back from the city meeting
and honestly it couldn't have went better
to be totally honest with you.
The city planner,
as well as the city inspector both loved it.
I mean, they were like,
this is exactly what we want the city to be.
We actually are moving in this direction.
So you're doing exactly what we want.
Now the downside is,
is that we do have to apply for a variance,
which means that basically notification goes out
to everyone within like 300 feet,
all our neighbors,
everything like that.
So if anyone is against it,
they can actually go to a public meeting and say,
we don't want them to be able to do that.
Hopefully that doesn't happen.
Ultimately it goes to the city council for a vote,
no matter what people have to say.
So we do have to get a variance
and a little bit of a special use permit
just to be able to do it.
But they are definitely onboard.
They think this is great for the city.
I think it's great for the city.
So really the meeting was fantastic.
The parking wasn't an issue.
All the things I was concerned about,
actually weren't an issue.
Just we do have to do the variance.
So we're going to apply for that.
It's gonna probably take us about six weeks
to get the variance.
We're just keeping on moving ahead.
No matter what happens,
even if we can't raise the money immediately,
we wanna still have everything in plan
so that when we do do it,
we have everything in plan.
So regardless, it worked out well.
And I hope that you guys enjoyed it.
Again, keep commenting.
Let me know what you guys think.
Helped me through this issue.
Man, I need to figure this one out.
If you did enjoy this video,
please do me a favor.
Here's the renovation that we did on the Reptarium.
Whole playlist of it.
On this side,
you can definitely do me a favor
and hit that subscription button.
Means the world to me.
Have an absolutely wonderful day.
Remember be kind to somebody.
And I promise, I'll see you guys in the next one.