Weekend Interview: Mintwood Founder Katy Slade On Mixed-Use Projects, Office Conversions And Why 'Cookie Cutter' Won't Do
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Mixed-use projects are near and dear to Mintwood Real Estate Founder Katy Slade’s heart. After all, she cut her teeth on them with Gables Residential for more than a decade before deciding to start her own company in 2018.
As a woman-owned firm, Mintwood stands out in the commercial real estate landscape. Slade said she’d like to see that change, though she expects it will take time for the industry to become more open to it.
“We need to be open to listening to other people's voices at the table,” Slade said. “And make sure that we're giving opportunities for everybody's voice to be heard.”
In addition to mixed-use, Slade has done a lot of multifamily development, overseeing more than 4,000 residential units as part of projects in Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Florida and North Carolina.
Mintwood also partnered with Pacific Elm Properties on an office-to-multifamily conversion at its Santander Tower skyscraper in Downtown Dallas. The high-profile 291-unit Peridot Residences multifamily project just wrapped up at 1601 Elm St.
Slade has been the driving force behind award-winning mixed-use and multifamily projects in Texas, Florida, and the District of Columbia, but more than anything, Slade is attracted to commercial real estate's transformative potential.
“One of the best memories I have from that is when the Whole Foods Market that we built when we were at Gables in Uptown [Dallas] opened,” she said. “All of the sudden, people were walking down the sidewalks on what previously had been vacant land where nobody would have ever walked down the block.”
Slade spoke with Bisnow about office conversions, white whale projects and why real estate is a tangible way of turning a love of people and what makes them tick into meaningful spaces.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Bisnow: How did you get into commercial real estate and what’s kept you in the industry?
Slade: I love cities, and I love walking around cities and exploring. I love the community that cities build and the diversity that can come from it. I was studying religion in college, and this was around the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and was [in] a section called “Modern West,” which was thinking about just the impact of religion on our world. I needed to figure out actually what to do with my life, and I realized that I loved being part of tangible outcomes. Real estate is a great place to take love of people and what makes people work and figure out how to build great places for them.
Bisnow: Tell us about how Mintwood Real Estate came about.
Slade: I worked for over a decade in different mixed-use development jobs, most significantly for Gables Residential. I realized there were so many different opportunities in the Texas and southern markets that I could be creative with and think through, independently from a large institutional group. Over the course of several years, I made the decision to start Mintwood. For the first three years, [it] was just myself and my business partner Nick Venghaus. Nick ran construction at Gables, so we had worked on a lot of creative mixed-use deals together. [We] knew our working relationship was strong and that we could build a lot of great projects together.
Bisnow: What are the biggest challenges, or advantages, of being a woman founder of a commercial real estate firm and how do you navigate those?
Slade: What I think is most important in the industry is understanding how people make choices of where to live. At Mintwood, we spend a lot of time thinking through how to make places that are homes for people. We use very innovative interior design companies. We have long-term relationships with architects that help build exactly what we like to build. We spend a lot of time thinking through what the units need to look like and how they can be efficiently designed to maximize space for people. All of that comes from just a deep interest on our end of thinking through how to make homes for people.
The woman part is an element that plays into it from the standpoint that we get to stand out. We look a lot different at Mintwood than a lot of the other development firms in Dallas and in Texas. We have a lot that we can do with that and set a new bar.
Bisnow: Tell me about a project that you worked on that meant a lot to you. What did you learn from it or why was it important?
Slade: Every project that I work on is very personal to me, and we're definitely not cookie-cutter developers with what we do.
One of the most important ones was Mintwood’s first project, which is a project in the Bishop Arts [District] that’s 55 units [and] just a block away from all of the great restaurants and retail … in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas. With that project, we really learned the value of relationships that we had with different people in the industry and the importance of long-term relationships to be able to really talk to people about financing and getting them to make bets on us, and working with architects to get designs maximized for cost efficiency. That was so critical to us on our first project. We did that with Thackeray Partners, which is now Greystar, as our partner.
Bisnow: What does it take to build a mixed-use project that stands out and wins awards?
Slade: Time is critical. We're working on a project that is a major mixed-use development in Oklahoma City, and the development partner that we're working with started assembling that land a decade prior to starting construction. What's important is a lockstep working relationship between all the team members, where there's constant communication about adjustments and priorities.
What I have seen be unsuccessful in mixed-use developments is when one product type or use dominates the outcome and drives the decision-making. If you really need the leasing office at the prime location, then you risk attracting the best retailers to your project. Conversely, if you really need to have your trash and loading in a certain area for the retail use, that can really impact how people live above it because you constantly have the beeping of the trucks. There is a huge amount of need to balance constructively between the different uses to create a successful outcome.
Bisnow: What are the ingredients needed for an office conversion project to be successful?
Slade: Similarly, and this is a common thread for Mintwood, patience and patient partners. Partners that are committed to the long-term vision are critical.
The office-to-multifamily conversion that we just completed with Pacific Elm Properties that's called Peridot Residences, that project was years in the making as well. It wouldn't have been successful but for Pacific Elm’s interest in making sure that the Class-A office building that was operating continued to feel and function like a Class-A building throughout the entire process. The advantage we had was the loading elevator entry was subgrade, and so we were able to have delivery trucks arrive three levels below grade without interrupting and interfering with the experience of the office users. So the patience that [Pacific Elm] had and the vision that they had was imperative to create a successful outcome.
Bisnow: The market for distressed office in DFW has been heating up, with buyers making bets on a return to office and a need for those existing buildings. Do you think those are good bets or should more developers look at conversion projects like the one you did with the Peridot?
Slade: That's a great question. I am not an office developer, and so it's hard for me to talk through the fundamentals of what drives an office development. What I do know is that there are markets where there is still an extremely high vacancy. The fundamentals in the buildings with those markets have not shifted to a place where they are attractive office space compared to the amount of Class-A office space that's being constructed.
I certainly would prefer on my end, and this is self-motivated, to position myself as somebody who is there to convert office buildings to multifamily. It's better when you're making a bet like that of buying distressed office to know what your counterplay would be. If somebody doesn't show up to lease the space, what can you do with it? Hopefully, a multifamily conversion is something that’s viable as a backup plan.
Bisnow: What are the latest projects you’re working on that you’re most excited about?
Slade: We're finishing up our project in Oklahoma City. That one is extremely exciting because it's got a lot of national-level tenants like Williams Sonoma, Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware in it. We are also in the midst of leasing up Oakhouse, and that is a workforce housing community where half of the building is built for people at 80% of the area median income.
Next in our pipeline, we have another [Dallas] Public Facility Corp. project that has the workforce housing. We're working through the predevelopment stages of that. We're also working with Pacific Elm on another office-to-multifamily conversion in Downtown Dallas. That is a long process of figuring out how to get all the fundamentals to work on it and to make it successful. Then we have a couple of other exciting mixed-use projects that are in the pipeline. So we have a lot of creative deals in our future.
Bisnow: What’s your white whale project that you would love to tackle someday?
Slade: I love the mixed-use projects and being able to really change communities. My favorite moment is always when a project first opens.
One of the best memories I have from that is when the Whole Foods Market that we built when we were at Gables in Uptown opened. All of the sudden, people were walking down the sidewalks on what previously had been vacant land, where nobody would have ever walked down the block. To see that transformation in a neighborhood is so critical and fun for me. I've been lucky to be able to do projects like that already in my career, which makes me just want to do more transformative projects like that. Those are the white whales for me, just being able to change how people live through small steps.
Bisnow: What does the future hold for Mintwood Real Estate?
Slade: Mintwood is a small team of really creative and thoughtful people. We are eager to take on other deals in Texas and opportunities [outside] Texas. One of the projects we're working on with Pacific Elm is in North Carolina. So we're happily in the southern United States right now, in high-job-growth markets, and looking for great opportunities and great partners.
Bisnow: Give us a bold prediction for the rest of the year.
Slade: Texas is going to continue to grow as we look at the different political, geographical and environmental impacts that different parts of the country are facing. Texas emerges in a positive position that continues to attract people, and that means that housing is needed. I hope that it is high-density housing that allows for minimal environmental impact so that we learn the lessons of what has been in place from the last few decades of growth. It is to our advantage to build high-density and to create mixed-income communities where people have access to their jobs and their schools and the benefits that come from that. I would anticipate a lot of that [high-density housing] is office-to-multifamily conversion over time. Cities just need to figure out how to incentivize that.
Bisnow: What is your weekend routine or favorite weekend activity?
Slade: I have young children right now, and they're swimmers, so very frequently we'll find ourselves sitting at swim meets. When we're not, we love long walks, we love travel and taking our kids to see the world. We are very active right now and have too many things going on, but it's all a lot of fun.
