Houston White was first bitten by the entrepreneur bug at age seven when he noticed his cousin making money from tasks like cutting the grass and washing cars. Today, as a successful businessman, the Midwest native is on a mission to pour back into the community through his Camdentown Flats housing development property.
During his childhood, White’s home city of Minneapolis was once considered the murder capital of the U.S., with some even nicknaming it Murderapolis during the mid-1990s. While many young people his age were getting swept up in the lure of quick, illegal money, White, even as a young boy, had big dreams and no intention of risking his life for financial gain. Instead, he chose a different path, starting to cut hair in his basement at the age of 14.
Not only did this provide him with a legal way to make good money, but it was during these years that White understood the power of culture.
“Before social status or social media, the social status of the day was a fly, fresh fade,” White, 40, tells BLACK ENTERPRISE. “So I think it’s been many iterations, but I would say when my 7-year-old self and my 14-year-old self had access to these levels of being your own boss, I realized I wanted to take the entrepreneurial route.”
White’s broader vision for North Minneapolis is coming true through Camdentown Flats. He realizes that this concept of affordable housing, centered around community, has been in him and not on him since he moved to the city from Mississippi in 1985 around the age of seven.
He recalled discovering that Prince attended his high school and how, when he cut hair as a kid, he learned that Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis used to make their hits, including songs for acts like Janet Jackson and New Edition, in the suburbs of Minneapolis, a predominantly white neighborhood.
“So think about this,” he says. “What if Prince or Jimmy Jam had brought a block in the neighborhood where they came from and built their studio? One of the reasons why I’m happy I didn’t peak early is because my 25- or 30-year-old self wouldn’t have been thinking like this.”
The community is at the center of everything White puts his hands on, including his latest Camdentown Flats venture, which is funded through a combination of sources, including partnerships with brands like 3M and Target.
“In every city in America, the suburbs is where we go to the movies, to the mall, to do all the good sh*t, and then we just have to live in the neighborhoods with our people if we can’t afford better and so I’m like man, this is BS, so let’s build something to prove that people want to be together,” says White. “That we can be together, that we can build aspirational housing.
“I didn’t know how important proximity was until I was without the proximity of different things,” Chief Financial Officer of Houston White Enterprises Ron R. Richard adds. “With Camdentown Flats, it’s all about that social connectivity. People always talk about Black people needing therapy to deal with their traumas, and honestly, therapy is an expensive thing, a health requirement that not all of us can afford. Where we do find therapy is in the communities that we’re surrounded by, and when we have an issue, or we have things that we’re dealing with, we can always come to the community and then tap in and see that ‘Oh, OK, this person’s kind of dealing with that and this is how they handle it.’ And I could talk to this person and be around that. For me, being a 40-year-old man, how do we help create that fertile ground for the 25 or 30-year-old trying to find that community and that connection?”
Merging modern living with cultural connection, local art and history, and innovative features, thanks to partnerships with brands like Target, Blue Dot, 3M, and Best Buy, Camdentowntown Flats is reshaping the future of North Minneapolis.
Still, White admits the work isn’t done.
“We’re working on a phase three project, which is a 3-story commercial building that’ll have a restaurant, new concept pizzeria, Bruce Leroy’s Pizzeria on the first floor, and then corporate tenants on the second floor, and we’ll bring the headquarters, Houston White Enterprises, on the third floor,” Richard explains.
Adds White, “It’s important for us to build an enterprise and business and create community impact. East Lake in Atlanta is one of our North Stars, right? How they’ve taken a sport like golf, this stodgy white man’s game. We play golf all the time, so we get it’s all about that country club situation, but we want to take that and bring it to Camdentown so as Houston White Enterprises grows, whether it’s with Target or US Bank or Best Buy or Four Seasons or any other corporation, they’re like, ‘Oh, I directly see that relationship impacting a community for the better.’”
Ultimately, the goal is to build a billion-dollar enterprise from the block and pour it back into the community. Houston White and company are leading the charge in North Minneapolis, one housing development project at a time.
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