The Ward Baking Company located on the corner of Rex Street and Portage Avenue, has sat crumbling and empty for close to 10 years. Needless to say, it holds a lot of history.

“This was built originally when it was at the edge of the city as the ward baking company and originally it was just a small German bakery called the Beuse Bakery and then they bought that up, added another building in the 1940s,” Bakery Group LLC President Mike Keen said. “And then it was abandoned in 2012 and since then it’s just sat empty full of stuff.”

A few years after it was abandoned, the Near Northwest Neighborhood Community Center tried to turn the building into affordable elderly and workforce housing, but were never able to win the grant needed to make it happen.

“The thing has been a neighborhood nuisance for the last decade, plus driving down neighborhood property values and making people feel this isn’t a very attractive neighborhood,” Keen said.

So, two years ago in 2019, Bakery Group LLC President Mike Keen stepped up to the plate, dedicating tons of time and brainstorming, to bring life back to the building and to the area!

“We want to turn it into neighborhood asset so that it becomes a draw because it’s such a beautiful building and if we can bring it back to its earlier life, it’ll be one of the coolest spaces not only in South Bend but really in the region,” Keen said.

“I sure do hope it does give people an opportunity to give it a second look at the near north side and portage corridor,” South Bend Chamber of Commerce Executive Vice President Rob DeCleene said.

Last night, Keen and the South Bend Common Council met to discuss ways the city can help financially, and approved two tax abatements for the development. With this help, the vision for this enormous space, is that much closer to becoming a reality!

“What we are looking for is a broad variety. We want some really creative folks, the artists and the makers, but we also want some professional office folks, you know people who can provide services to the other people in the building but also the neighborhood.”

“I think anytime you can use a building anywhere in the city that’s of that size with that much street frontage, it’s just an exciting opportunity for guests, for the city, and the neighborhood surrounding it,” DeCleene said.

What the future holds for the building down the line, and what it’ll bring to the table, is what Keen calls a complete transformation.

“We’ve been working for the last couple of decades to sort of rebuild the neighborhood, there have been many vacant lots that we’ve recently purchased maybe 15 or 16,” Keen said. “But to go from a neighborhood that people sort of see as a scary neighborhood to a place where it becomes a destination that people want to come around and hangout and be part of, it really is, what I say is transformational.”

Keen said the transformation hopefully begins next year, and estimates it to be a 3-year project. In the meantime, he’s on the lookout for local businesses who are interested in rent out one of the 60 units inside when it’s done. If you’re interested in collaborating, you can reach out to him at mfkeen1@gmail.com.

Big Award & New Successes for Public-Private Partnership Between DeSoto Economic Development Corporation, City of DeSoto, Options Real Estate, and The Industry Hub Boost Shuttered Hardware Store Turned Market & Small Business Incubator.

At one time the future of the large shopping center on Belt Line Road in DeSoto, Texas looked bleak. Their anchor tenant, a 26,000 square foot Ace Hardware Store shut down, and the only option to some was to bring in a dollar store. But City Leaders, their Economic Development Corporation, and forward thinking civic allies teamed up to oppose the dollar store option and, instead, proposed the idea of a market place for merchants with unique items and services and that could also act a small business incubator to “grow” the next generation of DeSoto’s businesses.

Back on June 14, 2019, The North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG), an association of North Texas governments that assists with regional planning efforts, awarded their Celebrating Leadership in Development Excellence (CLIDE) Award for New Development to the DeSoto Market Place for exemplifying one or more of their Principles of Development Excellence. They also declared that the DeSoto Market Place serves as an example of Development Excellence in the North Central Texas Region. And since then the Market Place has welcomed a Vietnamese Restaurant the has elevated DeSoto’s culinary landscape and seen one incubator tenant build on their success and venture out into DeSoto’s business community.

The CLIDE Awards Program, created in 2003, recognizes public and private entities including cities, developers, architects, planners and engineers, to encourage innovative development projects and practices that will help accommodate expected growth and ensure a sustainable North Texas for generations to come.

The DeSoto Market Place houses the Grow DeSoto Market Place (Grow DeSoto) which came to fruition from a first of its kind public-private partnership between the DeSoto Economic Development Corporation (DeSoto EDC), the City of DeSoto, Options Real Estate, and The Industry Hub to repurpose a building once occupied by ACE Hardware in a manner that would benefit small business owners, as well as the community of DeSoto.

The vision of this unique partnership is to provide a lower barrier to entry on the path to entrepreneurship for small business owners. Businesses that lease space within the Grow DeSoto Market Place receive reduced rental rates with all utilities included, a high traffic area that is easily accessible from I-35 and I-20, flexible lease terms, ongoing business training, mentorship, and the resource assistance of the DeSoto EDC, the DeSoto Chamber of Commerce, the City of DeSoto, Options Real Estate, and The Industry HUB. The space also includes private office suites that are available for lease.

Grow DeSoto, which celebrated its grand opening in October 2018, provides shoppers in DeSoto and the region with a wide variety of unique retail shops, services, restaurants, and a full service fitness and rehabilitation center. “The Grow DeSoto Market Place symbolizes the creative rebirth of our small business community and serves as an example to many other cities that the closure of old businesses in a community can present bold new opportunities that can ultimately make a positive difference within a city!” stated DeSoto Mayor Curtistene McCowan. Monte Anderson, CEO of Options Real Estate, added “As I had expected, we have found highly skilled and creative entrepreneurs from the local community. And, at the same time, we recognize that there is still a lot of work to do in developing local entrepreneurs.”

ABOUT DESOTO ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION

The DeSoto Economic Development Corporation (DeSoto EDC) is a non-profit organization funded by sales tax revenue to foster local prosperity while maintaining an excellent quality of life and minimizing local ad valorem taxation. The DeSoto EDC aims to assist businesses with a seamless relocation assistance process to DeSoto by providing site selection searches, competitive incentives, a skilled workforce and a prime location in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. Whether your company needs a new commercial office building on Interstate 35, a manufacturing facility on a hill overlooking downtown Dallas, a fulfillment warehouse, or a service-oriented facility, DeSoto is the place to build your business, raise your kids, enjoy life and retire in style. For more information, visit our website at http://www.dedc.org.

For more information about the Grow DeSoto Market Place visit http://www.growdesoto.org
For more information about the CLIDE Award for New Development visit http://www.developmentexcellence.com

While the development vacuum hovers above, another movement rises from the bottom up. This chapter is not just about improving walk-ability, but about moving past the top-down economic thinking that enabled car-dependent growth. Creating places around the pedestrian also provides an opportunity to evolve the economy around the community. Through two tales in very different cities, we’ll see a new type of real-estate mogul—one who tends to the garden of local wealth.

Monte Anderson (no relation to John Anderson) grew up in Dallas on the south side of the river, “the side of the river where the have-nots lived, or the wrong side of the railroad tracks,” as he put it. It was a lower- to lower-middle-income area that experienced a lot of “white flight” in the 1970s and ‘80s and became a racially mixed neighborhood. “I was one of the guys that stayed and continued to work there even when my friends moved away.”

Monte entered real estate through construction, cutting sheetrock for his Dad’s contracting company. Eventually, Monte would take on his own development project. He bought a rundown motel with big plans to fix it up all at once. Unfortunately, he couldn’t get the financing to renovate the building. Rather than trying to redo the whole thing, he and the staff decided to fix up just one bedroom. Quickly, they saw the occupancy of that room rise to 90 percent, and from there, used the revenue and experience to remake the rest of the motel. Monte realized that success came from pouring love into one little thing at a time and watching it grow.

A DeSoto restaurant that has perfected the fried chicken sandwich has launched a new sibling which promises to do the same for burgers.

Called 2 Neighbors Burgers and Shakes, it’s a spinoff of 2 Neighbors Chicken, which has been doing the hot chicken thing since 2017.

2 Neighbors is a mother-and-daughter venture from Carlonda Marshall, a former DeSoto High School teacher, and her daughter, who originally opened 2 Neighbors Chicken in Cedar Hill, the relocated to the Grow DeSoto Market Place at 324 E. Belt Line Rd. in 2020.

They’ve prospered at the marketplace, even despite the pandemic — with business brisk enough to warrant branching off into something new.

“We were originally doing wings and soul food, but we slimmed down the menu once we moved,” Carlonda says. “I’m from Nashville, which is known for hot chicken, but we do it in more of a natural style. We’re known for our chicken sandwich with chicken breast, we fry it and then dip it in the seasoning — like Popeye’s, but it’s bigger than Popeye’s.”

For their new burger venture, they took over the space next door that was previously home to Shelley’s, a Chicago-style hot dog spot.

“We knew we wanted to do burgers and shakes, but we only had so much working space use at 2 Neighbors Chicken,” she says. “We use all the fryers for our chicken and we had no place to put a grill for cooking the burgers.”

They’re still working up their online presence, but their menu includes burgers, which can be ordered regular or plant-based. “I’m doing a vegan version with Impossible burgers,” she says.

They do a thin patty which you can stack with multiples, and top it with melty cheese. It’s served on a brioche bun with pickles and special sauce.

They also do sliders, milkshakes, and vegan cupcakes — and as a backup, you can always order hot chicken from 2 Neighbors Chicken, right next door.

From the streets of Mexico City, through a home kitchen in Dallas and then a food truck, Tacos La Gloria has landed a permanent home in Oak Cliff’s Tyler Station after getting off to a chilly start.

The owners of the former food truck opened the location Feb. 6 only to be shut down a week later when Winter Storm Uri coated North Texas in ice, snow and darkness. Now it’s going full-steam serving taco lovers dishes crafted by Maria Gloria Serrato, the business’ namesake and head of the family behind it.

Serrato started selling food in the streets of Mexico City in the 1980s to provide for her family. When she came to the U.S. in 1986, she worked various jobs in restaurants and the food industry, preparing items for food trucks and catering events on weekends. Tacos La Gloria started when the family began selling dishes made by Serrata in her kitchen. The business soon outgrew her home, and the family moved operations to a truck.

“When she wasn’t working in the kitchen at her job, she was in our kitchen at home preparing our dinner,” said daughter Daisy Wall, the restaurant’s operations manager. 

“Her dream has always been to own her own business, and as her children, there are five of us, we’ve always recognized how hard she’s worked to be able to provide for us. We all have one goal in common — make her dreams come true. My brother Mingo called me one day about three years ago and came up with the idea of buying a food truck for our mom.”

They purchased the food truck in 2019, and things were clicking along until the pandemic hit last March, forcing it to close for several months. The family reopened in October doing pop-ups and event catering before settling in Oak Cliff Brewing’s beer garden, which offers plenty of outdoor seating with tables set up for social distancing.

Serrato prepares all the food, though the entire family decides what goes on the menu. Most items are what Serrato cooked for her kids when they were growing up. They offer street-style tacos ($1.85), quesadillas $4.75/$7.75), sopes ($4.50), gorditas ($3.50), huaraches ($7.25), flautas ($8) and menudo ($12/$20). The proteins available are fajitas (beef and chicken), birria, pastor and chicharron (pork skin). They also offer breakfast tacos ($2.50), burritos ($3) and breakfast plates like chilaquiles verde or rojo ($9.50).

On my visit, we ordered the quesabirria, a beef taco with cheese added, which Wall says was put on the menu when they started seeing it trending on social media. The quesabirria tacos had great flavor and just the right char or crunch. We also tried the gordita, available soft or fried; we choose soft, and the masa was cooked just right so it didn’t break apart when bitten. The well-seasoned tacos de pastor came on a handmade corn tortilla. The star of the show was the carne asada fries, served hot and crispy topped with your choice of protein, a mound of cheese and pico de gallo.

Tacos La Gloria does not have any veggie/vegan options now, but it‘s set up next to OG Vegan, another truck that operates at Oak Cliff Brewing. Also on the menu are homemade aguas: horchata, limon, pina, sandia and Jamaica.

You can find Taco La Gloria on Instagram (@tacoslagloria), Facebook (Tacos La Gloria), and Snapchat (@Tacoslagloria)

Tacos La Gloria, 1330 S Polk St (Oak Cliff). Open 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday, 6:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday, and 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday.

However, business incubators shouldn’t only focus on high tech. Too often the “innovation economy” privileges large corporations that can afford robots, and patent attorneys. Lower-tech food and farming businesses tend to be highly local and compete well against e-commerce. For example, cannabis production and sales have dramatically reduced vacancies in strip malls and warehouses in states where marijuana has been legalized. As such businesses grow more corporate, communities should consider subdividing large retail spaces into “mercados” that provide launching pads for smaller entrepreneurs.

That’s been the case at Grow Desoto Marketplace, a business incubator in a Texas strip mall. When the only retailer interested in occupying the vacant space was 99 Cents Only Stores, the mayor asked the owner, Monte Anderson, “Is there anything better we can do?” Together, they came up with ways to lower the barriers to entry and kick-start locally owned start-ups, many of which are eateries and most of which are Black-owned businesses. At “Pitch Mondays” entrepreneurs pitch their proposals to earn one of the 60 spots with reasonable rents, build-out construction costs included, and access to a marketing consultant. In 2019 it was 80% leased. Anderson said, “What I find in the African American community is an extreme amount of creativity and a lack of experience when it comes to access to practice business. I think it’s so important that we figure out how to build wealth for local people, bottom line.”‘

In 1919, Busse Baking company built a new, modern bakery on Portage Avenue in the heart of the Near Northwest neighborhood. The South Bend Tribune avidly documented its opening and early days:

Among the institutions in which South Bend takes special pride is the Busse Baking Company, located at 906 Portage Avenue. The new plant shown in the above illustration was erected a year ago at a cost of $90,000. The plant is the most modern that expert bakery designers could devise and has been pronounced one of the finest bread plants in the central west. Housewives in and around South Bend keep this big plant taxed to capacity supplying bread for their tables and the growth of the business has been little short of marvelous.

It represented a leap forward in bakery design. But even so, the company would be taken over just three years later by Ward Baking Company, marking an end to the “South Bend Bread War”—a story we’ll surely tell another day.

Suffice it to say, the building has lived a curious 102 years of life (81 years for the addition on the North end), but that might only be the beginning of its story.

After sitting vacant for a decade in which the Near Northwest Neighborhood was six times denied tax credit funding to turn it into affordable housing, a new plan is emerging from a team of incremental developers, including local Mike Keen and Texas-based Monte Anderson. Monte discussed their plans with WVPE in October:

Instead of housing, the current plan being considered would turn the building into a neighborhood hub for business, arts and retail.  

“I like to call it a collaborator village,” said Texas developer Monte Anderson. “You know, somebody does graphic design, somebody’s got a restaurant, somebody might make cupcakes for the restaurant, all of these things. You begin to work together and it becomes this cultural hub.”

Anderson has teamed up with local developers Mike Keen, Greg Kil and Dwayne Borkholder to refurbish the building and fill it with tenants whose business the neighborhood would likely value.

“What matters is what the neighborhood and the market say to put in here,” Anderson said. “We’re going to create the environment where the neighborhood can express itself.”

So in the late afternoon of Thursday, December 31st, I, along with Camille Zyniewicz and Mike, spent a couple of hours making photographs of the building and filming what we saw on a makeshift chest-mounted GoPro.

You can call it Portage Place now. Here is what I saw.