Originally Posted: April 26, 2018
SMU alumnus Mark Masinter has been behind the scenes from the beginning on the hot concept rollouts in retail’s heydays of the 1990s and 2000s: the likes of Restoration Hardware, J.Crew and Apple.
Mark Masinter has left a trail of angry activists as he tries to remake Henderson Avenue. The old East Dallas street has established and newer shops but also areas of blight. It’s a 1.1 mile street with pockets of successful restaurants, bars and shops amid disconnected gaps and crooked sidewalks that kill its walkability, especially at night.
Masinter’s vision is to connect it and make it unique to Dallas. Though he had to scale back his plans, the city council approved a version earlier this month that allows him to leave his mark on the area.
Henderson is an opportunity for Dallas, he said, to have its version of Abbot Kinney in Venice, Calif., Kingston Ave. in Charlotte, Elizabeth Street in Soho, or 23rd Avenue in Portland.
“I think Henderson has that kind of vibe culturally,” he said. “We own buildings that we won’t tear down. The Porch, Capital Pub, Fireside are all cool buildings that aren’t going anywhere. Houndstooth, not going anywhere, Gemma, not going anywhere.”
“I’m trying to do something tasteful and lasting, as it gets older, it looks better,” he said.
Storied history
Masinter has made a career of advising retailers about when and where to open stores and developers about how to fill their retail space.
Ever wonder why the mall across town has a J. Crew store and yours doesn’t? Or who decided when your city finally got an Apple store? Masinter does.
He’s the one Apple called when in 2000 Steve Jobs decided Apple would have stores.He and his partners at Open Realty Advisors have been quietly working out of Dallas for decades on retail projects from California to New York and D.C. and Canada to Asia.
Open Realty and Los Angeles-based CIM Group have been buying real estate along North Henderson Avenue for more than five years. The partnership owns 127,000 square feet of 18 single-story, stand-alone and strip retail buildings along Henderson between Ross Avenue and N. Central. Masinter won approval this month from the Dallas City Council to build a 156,500-square foot office, retail and restaurant development on 4.5 acres vacant on the north side and south side of Henderson between Glencoe Street and McMillan Avenue.
While the plan had strong support from neighbors, it faced fierce opposition from some vocal East Dallas residents who believe the project is too big and will bring too much traffic to the broader area. Masinter, agreed to scale back portions of the project to include a shorter office building in addition to the two-level underground parking garage for the 72,500 square feet of office space, 72,000 square feet of retail and 12,000 square feet of restaurants. The space is in office buildings and bungalows wrapping around a corner to fit in with the area’s older homes. Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Adam Medrano said before a vote was taken at City Council that he received more emails of support than against the project.
Masinter convinced the Council and a majority of surrounding neighbors that he has tested his ideas and has reason to believe that the area has the best chance of becoming Dallas’ premier walkable neighborhood.
He helped internet-first brands such as Warby Parker and Bonobos find their customers in the physical world, and he says, “they helped me prove the concept of Henderson” when both opened stores there in 2014.
Masinter, 54, has been behind the scenes from the beginning on the hot concept rollouts in retail’s heydays of the 1990s and 2000s: the likes of Restoration Hardware, J.Crew and Apple – the store that’s redefined the upper ranges of sales-per-square foot and is at the top of the checklist for Class A properties. READ MORE