Entrepreneur Transforms Minneapolis With Aspirational Housing

Houston White first caught the entrepreneurial bug on the age of seven when he noticed his cousin earning money by mowing lawns and washing cars. Today, as a successful businessman, the Midwest native is on a mission to offer back to the community through his Camdentown Flats condominium property.

During White’s childhood, his hometown of Minneapolis was considered the murder capital of the United States, and a few even giving it the nickname Murderapolis within the mid-Nineties. While many young men his age were drawn into the trap of quick, illegal money, White, whilst a young boy, had big dreams and had no intention of risking his life for financial gain. Instead, he selected a unique path, starting cutting hair in his basement at age 14.

Not only did this give him a legal solution to make good money, nevertheless it also allowed White to know the facility of culture.

“Before social status or social media came along, the social status of the day was something that quickly faded away,” says White, 40. BLACK ENTREPRENEURSHIP. “So I think there were a lot of iterations, but I would say that when my seven-year-old self and my 14-year-old self were able to access those levels of being my own boss, that’s when I realized I wanted to go down the entrepreneurial path.”

White’s larger vision for North Minneapolis is coming true with Camdentown Flats. He realizes that this idea of inexpensive housing centered around community has been in him, not on him, since he moved to the town from Mississippi in 1985, when he was about seven years old.

He recalled discovering that Prince had gone to his highschool and the way, when he got his hair cut as a baby, he learned that Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis were creating their hits, including songs for artists like Janet Jackson and New Edition, in a predominantly white suburb of Minneapolis.

“Think about it,” he says. “What if Prince or Jimmy Jam had moved a block from where they were from and built their own studio? One of the reasons I’m glad I didn’t peak early is because my 25- or 30-year-old self wouldn’t have thought that way.”

Community is at the center of all the pieces White does, including his latest enterprise at Camdentown Flats, which is funded by quite a lot of sources, including partnerships with brands like 3M and Target.

“In every city in America, in the suburbs, we go to the movies, we go to the mall, we do all the good stuff, and then we just have to live in the neighborhood with our people if we can’t afford anything better, so I think, man, this is bullshit, so let’s build something to prove that people want to be together,” White says. “That we might be together, that we will construct dream apartments.

“I didn’t know how important proximity was until I lost proximity to things,” adds Ron R. Richard, CFO of Houston White Enterprises. “Camdentown Flats is about that social connection. People always talk about black people needing therapy to deal with their traumas, and honestly, therapy is expensive, it’s a health requirement that not all of us can afford. We find therapy in the communities that surround us, and when we have a problem or something that we need to deal with, we can always come to the community and then connect with them and see, ‘Oh, OK, this person is dealing with this and this is how they’re doing it.’ And I could talk to that person and be around them. For me, as a 40-year-old man, how can we help create that fertile ground for a 25- or 30-year-old who’s trying to find that community and that connection?”

Combining modern living with cultural proximity, local art and history, and progressive solutions through partnerships with brands like Target, Blue Dot, 3M and Best Buy, Camdentowntown Flats is changing the longer term of North Minneapolis.

White admits, nonetheless, that the work just isn’t yet done.

“We’re working on a phase three project, which is a three-story commercial building that will have a restaurant on the first floor, a new concept pizzeria, Bruce Leroy’s Pizzeria, and corporate tenants on the second floor. The third floor will be our headquarters, Houston White Enterprises,” Richard explains.

White adds, “It’s important to us to build an enterprise and a business and have an impact on the community. East Lake in Atlanta is one of our North Stars, right? How they approached a sport like golf, this boring white game. We play golf all the time, so we understand it’s a country club situation, but we want to bring that to Camdentown so that as Houston White Enterprises grows, whether it’s with Target, US Bank, Best Buy, Four Seasons or any other corporation, they say, ‘Oh, I see firsthand how this relationship is impacting the community for the better.'”

Ultimately, the goal is to construct a billion-dollar enterprise off the block and pour it back into the community. Houston White and company are leading the way in which in North Minneapolis, one development project at a time.