“Don’t be afraid to make sure that 30% of your trade is [minority and/or women-owned businesses]. You just have to be brave enough to not follow the norm and give those organizations a chance.”

Shannon Brown-Key
President
Good Urban Development
.…on leading a 50-home affordable housing community project for Matthews Southwest and Urban Specialists Inc., via the Dallas Business Journal.

Mill City 50, a 50-home affordable housing community planned for a neighborhood in Southern Dallas, is slated to have its first 10 homes hit the market in early 2024. It will be the result of the project leadership of Brown-Key, whose company is a joint venture between Matthews Southwest and Dallas nonprofit Urban Specialists Inc.

The three-bedroom homes will be priced between $249,000 and $311,000, the Dallas Business Journal reports, but offer a $40,000 drawdown for qualifying families to make the promise of home ownership that more achievable.

Another part of the Mill City 50 project: Expanding the nearby Doc’s convenience store to feature a ghost kitchen, workspaces, and coffee shop, with a retail opening slated for Q1 2024.

Three women of color are heading up the project, the DBJ reports, including Brown-Key, BWI Contractors Founder and CEO Stacie Stewart, and Simply Custom Partner Jeannette Brown-Sneed.

Brown-Key says the project will make a difference for the community while extending opportunities for minority- and women-owned businesses.

“We’re out here,” she told the DBJ. “We’re ready to work, doing wonderful and quality work, and are making opportunities for ourselves. We’re waiting for everybody else to catch up.”

You can read the DBJ story by going here.

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