School plans housing projects, business hub to encourage community investment

Everyday, parents drive more than an hour from Dallas suburbs like Frisco and Prosper to bring their children to St. Philip’s Community School. While they may send their children to the school in South Dallas, many don’t live in the neighborhood.  Developer Ferrell Fellows says that’s starting to change. She lives in South Dallas and her son attended St. Philips when he was younger. She says there used to be prostitutes standing on corners, beer bottles littering the sidewalks and drug needles covering the parks, but things are beginning to look different. 

“Students can’t turn a blind eye to what they are experiencing when they walk out of the school,” says Fellows, who also sat on the St. Philip’s community advisory committee from 2018 to 2020.  “A community means people need to feel safe to go to the park or walk down the street and that’s what it’s starting to mean again because of all that St. Philip’s has done.”

Fifty years ago, 373 liquor-related businesses saturated the four-mile area of South Dallas, according to St. Philip’s website. This was largely due to legislation that allowed for multiple liquor stores to crowd one block. Of those businesses, 48 were once within four blocks of St. Philip’s campus. Today, because of St. Philip’s mission to repurpose these spaces, only five remain. 

“The neighborhood transformation begins to invite people to live in the same community,” Fellows says. She recently sold a home to a St. Philip’s family that was looking to move closer to the school.  “It invites them to feel safe, to become residents, to become business owners, and to really create what a community is all about.”

This is all part of St. Philip’s overall strategy – to provide neighborhood services in their community. In addition to acquiring and revitalizing old liquor stores in the South Dallas community, St Philip’s is also working to help create new businesses by opening a new business hub. The school also has a development strategy to create affordable housing so more families will choose to live in the neighborhood.

“There’s so much untapped potential in South Dallas. We want to create a space where people can express themselves and grow, right in their own neighborhood.” — Julie Saqueton

Creating affordable housing solutions is a big part of St. Philip’s redevelopment strategy, says Julie Saqueton, the chief community advancement officer at St. Philip’s. Their housing project focuses on building townhomes that are designed for long-term affordability. By ensuring that these homes remain accessible to low- and moderate-income families, the initiative aims to stabilize the neighborhood and prevent displacement, Saqueton says.

Drawing inspiration from successful models like Boston’s Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, which used community land trusts to stabilize housing prices, St. Philip’s is implementing strategies that prioritize community ownership and affordability.

“Affordable housing is about more than just having a place to live,” Saqueton says. “It’s about creating a foundation for families to build their futures.”

Helping new and existing businesses

The school’s neighborhood revitalization fund is also helping existing businesses through commercial renovations. When House of Parts’ roof caved in after a recent storm, St. Philip’s was able to purchase it as part of their strategy to address the physical disrepair of structures in the area’s main commercial strip on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. 

“When the storm hit and [House of Parts’] roof caved in, it was our responsibility as a landlord to help repair it,” Saqueton said in an email. “House of Parts did have insurance that covered their contents. We have insurance too, but, unfortunately, the claim was denied and we are in the process of appealing it.”

Since reopening,  House of Parts owner Karl Hegwer says he has already seen a monumental change in the community. 

“It’s uplifting to see. When you see something everyday, you don’t see the change,” Hegwer says. “Because of St. Philip’s, you do.” 

To support and attract new businesses in the area, St. Philip’s Community Center plans to open The Hub at 1612 MLK Jr. Blvd. in early 2025. “The Hub” is a center for entrepreneurs who aren’t quite ready for a brick and mortar location just yet. Several businesses will be able to hold pop-up spaces in this location and test responses to their products and services. 

“The Hub concept is a part of a continuum of services in the Forest District that help to prepare entrepreneurs to become thriving small business owners,” Saqueton says.

Timing for The Hub’s opening couldn’t be better, she says.  The number of small business establishments in 75215, the area code for most of MLK Jr. Boulevard, increased from 2012 to 2022, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Numbers grew steadily from 2019 to 2022 with 265 small scale businesses in the zip code.

Nonprofit CEO Lafe Cook says he hopes that people from within the community will take advantage of these opportunities to create their own businesses. 

“Politics isn’t the answer to what is going on in our city. We are,” Cook said.

For long-time residents like Hegwer and families in South Dallas, St. Philip’s is more than a school—it’s a catalyst for change.

“South Dallas has always been a special place,” Saqueton says. “Our goal is to make sure it stays that way for generations to come. There’s so much untapped potential in South Dallas. We want to create a space where people can express themselves and grow, right in their own neighborhood.”

Ava Bates and Katherine Bales contributed to this story.

This article is a part of a Solutions Journalism Network grant-funded collaboration between Dallas Doing Good, Dallas Free Press, and Southern Methodist University journalism students enrolled in summer and fall 2024 feature-writing classes. Their collective goal was to capture the efforts of South Dallas residents and businesses to preserve and revitalize Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Dallas, TX. Read more stories from the Revitalizing MLK Jr. Boulevard series.