Katy Slade, the founder of Mintwood Real Estate, reflects on her work philosophy and explains why mixed-income development is crucial.
Katy Slade’s first job was in Washington, D.C., for a company that did a lot of retail and mixed-use development, which fit perfectly into her passion for community building and figuring out what makes people come together in cities.
Later, after going back to her hometown Dallas and working for a few years at Gables Residential, she decided to start her own company together with a business partner. Mintwood Real Estate came to life in 2018 and, since then, has been focusing on mixed-use and mixed-income developments.
Recently, Mintwood also got into office-to-residential conversions, with some of these developments including workforce components. To make sure any new project they take on caters to the specific needs of an area, Slade likes to gather feedback from locals and ask them what would really benefit their neighborhood.
“If we don’t step back as developers and think through what it is that we are doing and the purpose of who we are building for and make sure that we are listening, we are at risk of creating a bunch of vanilla boxes,” said Slade in the December episode of Mission Success: Women in Multifamily, hosted by Multi-Housing News Senior Editor Laura Calugar.
Here’s what else they discuss:
- Slade’s career path (1:08)
- Why it’s critical to develop mixed-income communities (4:08)
- Mintwood’s Oakhouse project in Dallas (5:00)
- Other mixed-income developments in the works or planned (7:26)
- Evaluating the impact of a project on a neighborhood (8:13)
- What makes Slade proud (9:38)
- Hobbies and free time (10:35)
- How Mintwood has evolved (11:32)
- Diversity, equity and inclusion in multifamily (14:29)
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