Feb. 22, 2021

It’s downtown’s oldest building, and Kevin Tupy wanted it.

So in 2017, the entrepreneur who built his name in the wireless business became the owner of the Beach Pay, an 1887 building at 122 S. Phillips Ave.

As the sheetrock, 1990s carpet and light fixtures started to be peeled away, “we just started falling in love with the historic nature of it,” Tupy said.

“We felt obligated and honored to bring it back to its original condition by exposing the brick and the wood floors.”

And then he put it back on the market.

“We thought somebody is going to absolutely want this,” Tupy said.

They did. The offers started coming.

“And then the fear of missing out started taking over because we knew we’d never be able to duplicate this,” Tupy said.

He began envisioning the third floor, previously occupied by Bender Commercial Real Estate Services, as the new headquarters for Cresten Capital Holdings, his investment firm that specializes in real estate development and invests in other operating companies.

“We did a final walkthrough with Michael Bender, and he had a lot of the historic (information) on the third floor, like when it was a speakeasy, and we just went in the early part of last year and started taking things down,” said Erica Mullaly, a partner in Cresten.

“The more we took down we ended up taking more down because we uncovered so much cool stuff.”

They gutted it down to brick walls and then began turning the 7,000-square-foot level into their headquarters.

“Our goal is to make the office cooler than MarketBeat’s,” Tupy deadpans, in a reference to one of his newer investors, MarketBeat founder Matt Paulson.

“The second phase is going to be a rooftop deck on top of the building.”

He also put new decking on the back of the building last year, including outdoor space for The Hello Hi, and customer entrances for 605 Running Company and Urban Archaeology. The landscaping was cleaned up, and the entire area was made more accessible.

Nearly half of his own office is being made “into a fun area, with a pool table and pinball machines and lounge areas for collaboration just to revitalize during the day,” Tupy said. “What we do is stressful.”

Building Cresten Capital

Tupy’s business universe is a continually expanding one, and his personal story is a compelling one.

He grew up in a Valley Springs mobile home, remembers eating government cheese and dropped out of high school before being convinced to return.

At age 16, he moved into the Albert House on Phillips Avenue in downtown Sioux Falls – just a few blocks north from the Beach Pay Building he now owns.

Fast-forwarding through a longer story, he left a $40,000 financial services job to open a Dish Network kiosk at The Empire Mall in the fall of 2001.

It led him to become a Verizon retailer – and set him on a fast track to enormous growth.

He’s now a partner in Victra and owns what he calls a “significant share” of the business.

“A lot of people think I’m completely out of the wireless business because I don’t talk about it, but it’s a behemoth now,” Tupy said.

“We are the largest Verizon wireless agent in the U.S. and account for a significant share of their distribution nationally. And I sit on the board and offer a strategic and broad-level opinion when asked.”

He and his seven-person team at the corporate office of Cresten Capital Holdings are in a strong growth trajectory.

Tupy is all in on apartment development, with projects in the works throughout south and west Sioux Falls.

Last year, he acquired nearly 700 apartments among multiple properties across Sioux Falls, and he has several additional projects in development.

“We were very busy during the pandemic,” Tupy said, adding he started 2020 with one 144-unit complex in his portfolio.

“We believe in Sioux Falls. We believe in the economy. So we didn’t take our foot off the gas. We stepped on it during the pandemic.”

Cresten’s recently announced City’s Edge project at 69th Street and Southeastern Avenue, which will feature an Olympic-style outdoor pool and a dinosaur-themed playground, is set to move in its first residents later this year.

“And we’ve got a huge project in the northwest called The Brixx,” Tupy continued. “Probably over 300 units in phases at the corner of Marion and Benson.”

That project, a mix of garden and villa-style apartments, will start construction by midyear.

This spring, a 100-unit addition to Cresten’s Edgewater Villas along 85th Street between Minnesota and Cliff avenues will start.

Cresten also hopes to start a new mixed-use development this year called The Crimson next to the Walmart at 85th Street and Minnesota Avenue. It would combine first-floor office or small retail space with apartments above.

“We’re really trying to bring the downtown feel to that,” Tupy said. “It’s going to be really nice.”

The multifamily development pipeline even extends to Rapid City, where Cresten is working on a 308-unit development called The Altitude that sits on Mount Rushmore Road.

“It will be pretty cool,” Tupy said.

And he’s even considering developing a 300-unit apartment complex in Orlando.

“I do love Orlando,” he said.

Before entering the multifamily market, his previous commercial real estate projects mostly were retail and office centers.

That development continues too, with a retail center at 69th Street and Louise Avenue where Starbucks and Capriotti’s Sandwich Shop plan to open and one space remains.

“And we’ve got some QSR (quick-service restaurants) under contract that we’re acquiring and developing different concepts in the post-COVID world on the retail and restaurant side,” Tupy said. “We’re negotiating deals.”

Retail business ventures

Through Cresten, Tupy also has ownership in multiple other operating companies as well as a property management firm.

CarSwap, which he co-founded in 2017, will be consolidating its three locations into one large one in Tea’s Bakker Landing development.

The 3-acre project is scheduled to open by the end of the year and eventually will be served by the future interchange on Interstate 29 at 85th Street.

“We’re looking at bringing all the locations together and providing a really enhanced, significantly larger option and bringing service, which we’re not doing and excited to start,” Tupy said.

He also has ownership in 20 Anytime Fitness locations, including the three in Sioux Falls.

“I’m 52, and it creates a motivation to stay fit,” he half-joked. “All kidding aside, they’re the largest midsize 24/7 fitness concept in the United States.”

He liked that the gyms cater to people from all walks of life with what he called a value-oriented membership that offers reciprocity, allowing members to work out anywhere.

“They’re tech-oriented and just a great franchise that offers their franchisee a plethora of tools and support to provide best-in-class in the fitness space.”

Back at the new downtown headquarters, the Cresten team is settling in.

It has come together “beyond our wildest expectations,” Tupy said. “The team is pumped. It feels so good to be part of the downtown community.”

He’s planning to become more involved there, he added.

“It really does feel kind of surreal though,” he continued. “It’s something that we had always talked about and envisioned, and now we’ve made it a reality.”