Oak Cliff-based development firm Stewarding Space has bought eight sites in Lancaster’s downtown square totaling 17,000 square feet, with plans to revitalize, attract more businesses, and bring more attention to the area.
Founder Michaella Ramler told the Dallas Business Journal that she’s on a mission to bring life back to the community. The deal is expected to close in early February, the DBJ reported.
“The Lancaster community doesn’t have a watering hole, a place to gather in a communal real estate way,” Ramler said. “They have a recreation center, and they have a couple of strips with a Walmart. Revitalization to me in this context means bringing life back into this community and providing a place where they can actually meet one another.”
In early January, the Lancaster city council passed a $600,000 performance agreement with Stewarding Space that requires it to have a regional office in the square, have restaurant, café or other general food and beverage associated businesses in a minimum of four sites, and spend a minimum of $15,000 annually on marketing, the DBJ reported.
The publication said that should 75% of the property be occupied, Stewarding Space will receive $15,000 for each tenant for five years, and Ramler said she plans to use that money to support commercial tenants’ rents as needed in the first year of leases, marketing, and securing anchor tenants.
Lancaster city manager Opal Mauldin-Jones called the project’s timing perfect.
“With this developer coming in, acquiring those properties and bringing in that investment, we are optimistic that it is going to encourage even more development because there’s synergy with everything that she’s doing,” Mauldin-Jones said. “That fits very nicely into our vision of rehabilitating and redeveloping our downtown and bringing people together.”
The performance grant requires Stewarding Space to give preference to woman-owned, minority-owned, and existing Lancaster businesses.
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