Today we’d like to introduce you to Behzad Souferian.
Hi Behzad, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My story is that of an immigrant whose family left everything behind in Iran prior to the revolution. As a family of five, we arrived in the US and lived in a two-bedroom apartment and so began my passion and gratitude for this country’s opportunities.
I learned dedication, discipline and hard work from my first love; basketball. These life lessons are the cornerstones of my company. My love for the game earned me a basketball scholarship at the University of Southern California and a degree in Business Administration with a focus on entrepreneurship. This background laid the foundation for my passion for real estate development. I founded The Souferian Group in 2012 with a focus to be a best in class real estate development company dedicated to developing innovative, value driven experiential projects. Through our acquisitions and developments in multi-family, office and mixed-use properties, we are re-envisioning the real estate industry by delivering a value-driven communities for today’s renters’ expectations. The all-encompassing collection of social, wellness and lifestyle offerings within a highly cohesive design ethos delivers on the promise of the next generation of apartment living. Our most notable property in Los Angeles, a 606-unit residential project in downtown Los Angeles called Be DTLA by The Souferian Group, debuted last year and you can view our other projects setting a new industry standard in California and Arizona here.
Additionally, my wife Suzanne and I welcomed our first child, our son Jayden John Souferian in June of 2021. Family is everything to me and is the driving force behind everything I do. I want tenants at my properties to be valued like family because I vividly remember my first experience in an apartment community.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
No successful business has been built without challenges. At Be DTLA by The Souferian Group, we introduced this brand to the public just before the start of the pandemic and were tasked with pivoting in various areas to adapt to the quickly changing landscape. While Covid-19 touched virtually every industry, real estate and Los Angeles as a city were largely affected. Through our instinctually innovative approach to multi-family housing and with a key emphasis on wellness, we incorporated touchless products, virtual touring, work from home studios, and wellness programs that promote vitality in body, mind and spirit. After listening to the needs of renters today and adjusting accordingly, we were honored to be the first apartment building in the city and all of Southern California to achieve the WELL Health-Safety Rating, showcasing evidence-based best practices towards promoting wellness with a star-studded roster of supporters, including JLo, Lady Gaga, Michael B. Jordan, Venus Williams and more.
As you know, we’re big fans of Be DTLA by The Souferian Group. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
At Be DTLA by The Souferian Group, my vision has been to provide a first-of-its-kind wellness apartment community that redefines residential living – a centrally-located environment that emphasizes healthy mind, body, spirit and fun all in equal measure. Be DTLA is a best-in-class community that delivers a balanced lifestyle, with bespoke wellness programming and a commitment to social connectedness. At Be DTLA, wellness goes beyond a well-outfitted gym or a fancy yoga studio. Even prior to the pandemic-era shift away from the office, we were actively designing a suite of work-from-home amenities, including a TikTok creative content studio, podcast recording rooms and a variety of work-from-home studios and lounges. I am most proud of how we have dedicated ourselves, through our projects, to pushing the status quo and making wellness a way of life, spanning how we live, work and play and developing this environment as a value proposition has been my vision from the start.
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
When deciding how to approach the market over the next several years, my focus is on anticipating the manner in which we will be living in the future and listening to what has resonated in the present. At Be DTLA, we have observed that both a newfound value on holistic wellness and remote work have demonstrated staying power and will hold sway over future renters. Our vision from the start was to create the apartment model of the future, raising today’s renters’ expectations with our focus on value through an all-encompassing collection of social, wellness and lifestyle offerings, and through the trends we have seen emerge in the pandemic, these values have only been heightened. Additionally, we expect to see a continued shift toward renting as a lifestyle choice, a decision more comparable to a conscious awakening that is here to stay. The flexibility of renting translates into freedom and optionality and it has become a fundamental consideration in people’s decisions for their quality of lives. The old apartment model of solely providing a renovated apartment is dead and I believe we will begin to see more holistic rental offerings than ever before.
Pricing:
- We offer a variety of studios and one-, two- and three-bedroom units ranging in size from 489 to 1,385 square feet with leasing prices starting from $2,000/month.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://bedtla.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bebytsg/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BeByTSG/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/be-dtla-los-angeles
