BLOG: THE ESSENCE OF CULTURE IN DEVELOPMENT

As Chair for the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the Shops at RedBird, I didn’t expect it to move me the way it did.

On paper, it was a milestone event, a chance to honor the legacy of a shopping mall. But standing in the middle of that celebration, listening to people share their memories, I realized RedBird was never just a mall. It was the backdrop of life in Oak Cliff. Families recalled great memories in the food court. Parents spoke of their children’s first jobs in the department stores. Friends remembered weekend afternoons spent strolling the corridors together. These weren’t transactions, but rather meaningful stories. They were the “culture” of a place.

As a developer, much of my day-to-day work is consumed by the mechanics: design elements, the financing stacks, the zoning hearings, the engineering plans, and the lease negotiations. Necessary work, but it’s easy to forget that the blueprints and the balance sheets aren’t the point. They’re the scaffolding for something bigger, creating places where people feel at home.

RedBird taught me that lesson all over again. When we approached the redevelopment, we knew the community’s history with this site ran deep. Even through years of decline, there was pride and affection. So we tried to honor that, not erase it. Murals were commissioned to reflect neighborhood identity. Gathering spaces were designed to feel familiar and welcoming. And our investment strategy kept rents accessible, allowing longtime tenants to remain and new local entrepreneurs to take root. This wasn’t a play for displacement or gentrification. It was a chance to anchor growth in the very community that had given RedBird its meaning in the first place.

And RedBird is not alone. Across the country, other projects are finding ways to weave culture into their foundations. In Atlanta, the transformation of the old Sears warehouse into Ponce City Market preserved brick walls, steel beams, and industrial details that still carry the spirit of the past. Today it’s a place where local artisans, chefs, residents, and workers gather — tied directly into the Atlanta BeltLine, a literal pathway connecting the city’s history with its future.

In San Antonio, The Pearl turned a once-abandoned brewery into one of the city’s cultural anchors. It honors its industrial heritage while embracing new life: public plazas alive with markets, culinary festivals, and performances that keep the place pulsing with the identity of the city. The Pearl feels like San Antonio because it belongs to San Antonio — it holds the city’s past and present in the same breath.

And in Washington, D.C., the rebirth of the Navy Yard shows how even a shuttered military facility can be transformed into a community hub without losing its character. Cranes from the shipyard remain as monuments, now standing beside new apartments, offices, and parks. The riverfront is alive again, filled with concerts, markets, and everyday gatherings where longtime residents and newcomers alike mingle against the backdrop of the Anacostia.

These places remind us that development is not simply about reinvention. At its best, it is about continuity. It is about creating a future that remembers the past. That’s what makes them magnetic. That’s what allows them to endure.

The lesson I take away is simple: culture is capital. You can measure returns with cap rates and cash flow models, but the true value of a project is whether people feel connected enough to return again and again, to celebrate milestones there, to claim it as part of their own story.

At RedBird’s 50th, I saw that connection firsthand. People weren’t just reminiscing about what the mall used to be — they were celebrating what it still meant to them, and what it could become. That night was proof that redevelopment, done with care and intention, can be sustainable not only financially but socially. It can be an investment in people, not just property.

Every project sits on layers of memory. As developers and investors, we owe it to the communities we serve to uncover those layers, listen to the stories, and ask ourselves a simple but profound question: how can this project carry the history forward?

Because in the end, we’re not just building structures. We’re building belonging.