COMMERCIAL PROPERTY NEWS
By: Suzann D. Silverman, Associate Editor
Clifford Booth left Montreal for Dallas in 1979, when he was 24. He had heard about the booming market. Having been brought up in the art and antiques business, he wanted to open his own shop there. Having also been brought up in real estate, he purchased and refurbished his own shop at 2516 Maple Ave., in the heart of the art and antiques district, financing the deal with family equity and a bank loan. The Historic Preservation League, now Preservation Dallas, awarded him Best Adaptation for that project.
Historic renovations – specifically remaking downtown Dallas office, retail and warehouse buildings into mainly residential properties – have become an important piece of Booth’s business as president of Southwest Properties Group, Inc. But that emphasis came much later, in 1990, when he purchased Southwest’s current headquarters, the Katy Building at 701 Commerce St. Since then, he has already acquired 15 buildings and is pursuing more, with the help of some city second-lien loans, for which he helped Dallas win U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development funding.
In the meantime, Booth shuttered the antiques shop and bought 50 percent of Southwest Properties from owner Jim Anderson, joining with him in the purchase of everything from land to apartments to shopping centers. He bought out Anderson when the latter decided to leave the business after the October 1987 stock market crash. “I somehow believed it would get better,” Booth observed, “although I never believed it would take as long as it did.” He rode out the bad years, and when the market began to improve in 1990 he began looking for purchases in earnest.
Booth’s company now has $200 million in assets, with 7 million square feet in about 40 properties. In addition to downtown historic renovation, the opportunistic buyer pursues specialized industrial and retail properties throughout the Southern United States and has begun looking in Canada and Mexico. Traditionally, industrial was his strong suit, but Booth sees an increase in retail opportunities. His most recent purchases include Village on the Parkway, a 375,000-square-foot center in the heart of North Dallas’ retail corridor, and Village of Woodland Hills, a 230,000-square-foot center in Tulsa, Okla.
The work Southwest does on its properties ranges from retenanting to more complex renovations. Although it maintains an in-house construction company, architecture and financing are outsourced, as well as all leasing and brokering outside the Dallas area. “I’m a strong believer in outsourcing. That way we can choose the best at whatever we’re doing,” Booth said. The company remains very involved, however. “I love taking an asset and identifying why it’s not working and actually executing a plan to make it work,” Booth observed. “I find that very satisfying.”
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