This morning I had the pleasure of attending the Dealmakers Breakfast at the Park Cities Club. Our guest speaker was a hometown hero albeit from many years ago – Chuck Hixson of Westdale (www.westdale.com), a real estate investment company. Westdale is the largest owner of properties in Deep Ellum including restaurants, bars, vacant land, apartments, etc. They have a lot going on including a high-rise apartment development as well as a mixed-use development called The Epic. This development will incorporate the historic Union Bankers Building to the hotel, office, retail and residential plan.
The best part, however, was that Chuck’s background wove around that of Larry Golman’s, one of the members of the group. Larry brought an article published in Sports Illustrated in 1968 and presented a copy to Chuck. Larry read from a portion of the article that told how Chuck was a record-setting quarterback at SMU, but he had to get a job in the summers because he was already married and had a child. He drove a truck delivering Rainbow bread to grocery stores throughout Dallas. He had to be at the warehouse at 4:00 AM so all deliveries could be made by noon. What the article didn’t say was that it was Larry’s family that owned the bakery which hired Chuck. Larry and Chuck both remembered those hot summers and both decided that there was a better way to earn a living. They have both been in the commercial real estate business ever since.
Bob Gibbons is a Real Estate Advisor & Tenant Advocate with REATA Commercial Realty, Inc. which is a tenant advisory firm based in Plano, Texas. Bob serves companies in Plano, Frisco, McKinney, Allen, Richardson, Addison, Dallas and the surrounding areas and specializes in companies which lease or buy office and warehouse properties.