Igniting Urban Cores (Developing Entrepreneurial Ethos)

East Fort Worth Inc. hosted a panel discussion on redeveloping urban areas during the 2019 Global Entrepreneurship Week. Joining us in this effort were the East Fort Worth Business Association, Southeast Fort Worth Inc., the Metropolitan Fort Worth Black Chamber of Commerce and the Neighborhoods of East Fort Worth Alliance.

Discussion topics included "What about east Forth Worth can attract developers?", "How can developers be recruited?" and "What are the best ways of dealing with local resistance?" The discussion was attended by about 60 community leaders, developers and city economic development staff.




Mateson Gutierrez - Moderator
 Mateson, a Fort Worth Native, completed the early graduate program from C. F. Brewer High to pursue his passion for entrepreneurship and
obtain his Bachelors of Business Administration degree with a focus in Business Management. After returning home nearly a decade later, married with 4 children, Mateson began gaining local recognition among young professionals as a board member of SteerFW and within the software development community. This opened the door to him being selected as an expert speaker at the 2018 annual software developer conference at the Gaylord Texan in Grapevine. While sinking roots back in Cowtown, he had began developing a property management platform for his father's successful land business, Gutierrez Land Company (GLC). His family
has a primary focus in Southeast and East Fort Worth. As a family they have kicked off a Building Company, Local Homes, which is focused on bringing new homes to these areas that are affordable and create a standard for longevity and sustainability within the community. In addition to his commitment to this side of town, Mateson has also developed an app allowing anyone the opportunity to buy off-market and wholesale foreclosure auction properties with their phone. This was birthed after Mateson recognized a major unserviced market of consumers wanting to get started buying real estate through wholesale auctions and off-market wholesalers but didn’t know how. Being perfectly skilled to attack this problem he developed an entire process to begin servicing these consumers through a whole new online marketplace called Cache. With Cache Mateson is perfectly positioned to disrupt the off-market real estate and foreclosure auction industry. Cache allows anyone the ability to buy wholesale auction and off-market properties with the push of a button.
Monte Anderson - Panelist
Monte Anderson is President of Options Real Estate a multi-service real estate company
specializing in creating sustainable neighborhoods in Texas’ southern Dallas and northern Ellis counties. Since 1984 his focus has been to improve the living and working environments in these communities where he was born and raised. Monte is an outspoken and frequently recognized advocate for policies and practice to serve urban neighborhoods. He is a nationally recognized speaker and teacher who uses his body of work to teach
incremental development.
In Dallas, he repurposed Tyler Station, a blighted 1930’s manufacturing plant, into a transit oriented co-working facility, reconnecting the iconic property with its adjacent neighborhoods. Tyler Station is a Greater Dallas Planning Council Urban Design award winner. In the Trinity River Corridor Monte is responsible for the
renovation of the 1940’s Belmont Hotel, which received awards from Preservation Dallas and Preservation Texas. Surrounding the Belmont, Monte helped develop a more complete neighborhood with a range of projects including housing, a photography studio, animal hospital, fitness center, and restaurants. Both projects have
been recognized with a North Texas Council of Governments’ CLIDE Award.
In Duncanville, Texas, Monte has been a formal partner with the City to advance economic and real estate development in over a decade of activity. He has partnered with or assisted many entrepreneurs to increase the number of owner occupied buildings on Main Street. With over two dozen projects in the largely one story downtown area, his work reintroduced mixed-use buildings in this first ring suburb for the first time in several decades. He co-founded the DuncanSWITCH monthly market to create a pipeline of startup businesses to grow the economic health of the core business district. Monte was also instrumental in the conversion of an abandoned Kmart to a tortilla manufacturing facility and Mexican restaurant, a project that brought 200 jobs to Duncanville. The Main Street Revitalization corridor is also a CLIDE Award winner.
In Midlothian, Texas, Monte is incrementally building MidTowne Midlothian, a 131-acre mixed-use, traditional neighborhood development over a 25 year period. This multi-generational development connects schools, parks, and small retail buildings with multigenerational housing. MidTowne is another CLIDE Award winner. In DeSoto, Texas Monte completed an innovative retail concept, DeSoto Market Place, formerly a 50,000 sf retail center that was declining and providing no real value to the surrounding neighborhoods. Working with the City of DeSoto and the DeSoto Economic Development Corporation, the anchor tenant spot has been repurposed into a retail incubator housing startup retail, restaurants, and offices. The exterior includes a newly created space for retail trailers with overhead cafe lighting to attract neighbors to the center. A 2019 CLIDE Award winner.
Monte currently represents District 3 on Duncanville’s City Council. He served as president and founding member of the North Texas Chapter of the Congress for the New Urbanism and is also a founding member and senior faculty member of the Incremental Development Alliance, a group dedicated to training small developers nationwide to strengthen their own neighborhoods thru incremental development. He is a past President of the Oak Cliff Foundation, the entity that restored the historic Texas Theatre in Dallas. He is a past chair of the DeSoto, Cedar Hill and Oak Cliff Chambers of Commerce and Best Southwest Partnership.
In his spare time Monte enjoys playing with his grandchildren, his cats, and listening to rap music.
Megan Lasch - Panelist

Megan Lasch serves as Owner and President of O-SDA Industries, where she brings more than 12 years of experience in project management and consulting to the affordable housing industry, managing all aspects of a project life cycle.

Ms. Lasch received her Bachelor’s degree in Biosystems Engineering from Oklahoma State University. She began her career as an engineering consultant, where she helped design a variety of public and private development projects. She is a member of the Real Estate Council of Austin and has served as the Board Chair for Skillpoint Alliance, a non-profit providing technology-based workforce training.

Ms. Lasch was also recognized as a finalist in the Architecture, Engineering, & Construction category of the 2018 and 2019 Austin Under 40 Awards, which celebrates Austin’s most accomplished and influential emerging professionals who are making an impact in the community.

Partnering regularly with Saigebrook Development, another powerhouse WBE- and HUB-certified real estate development consulting firm, O-SDA has built more than 2,300 affordable housing units across the southeastern United States.

 
T.J. Moore - Panelist
 Born and raised in Arlington Texas, TJ Moore is a civil engineer who fell in love with land development. After getting his undergraduate degree in civil engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington, TJ worked for Graham Associates Engineering where he designed over 3,000 residential lots and several multifamily developments. He then decided to pursue a career in land development with David Weekly Homes. There he gained experience and cultivated his passion developing over 1,100 lots, specializing in high density urban infill. With that TJ created his own development company, ECM Development. He currently serves on the City of Dallas comprehensive housing policy task force, the development process improvement committee, and the shared access development committee. He is an involved husband and father to three young children (Elijah Cole, Emelia Claire, and Emerson Cade), TJ is also an active member of First Baptist Church of Arlington serving as the chair of their leadership committee and leading a young married adult class.



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