The Acres Homes neighborhood developed during World War I.
Warren Fitzgerald Muhammad’s family moved in shortly after Black Americans were able to purchase land.
“My mother is 94 years old, and she still lives in the home that my father built in Acres Homes,” Fitzgerald Muhammad said. “I’m a native of Acres Homes. Born and raised here. The home that I live in is the home that my grandmother built back in the 1960s.”
As president of the Acres Homes Chamber for Business and Economic Development, Inc., he has watched his neighborhood change.
“Being a lifelong resident, there was a time where basically we knew each other in this community,” he said. “But now, the whole face of it is changing.”
It’s not hard to find construction across the neighborhoods. Developers find the community affordable for them to build. Most of the new builds are multistory townhomes, a noticeable change compared to one-story homes.
“I’ve talked to people in the community and many people express the same concern is that they’re just piling them, one on top of another on top of another,” Fitzgerald Muhammad said.
“Whenever developers come into, particularly majority Black neighborhoods, there’s the perception that this is gentrification. Do you think that’s what’s happening here?” KPRC 2′s Rilwan Balogun asked Fitzgerald Muhammad.
“Absolutely. It is gentrification,” Fitzgerald Muhammad responded. “The property that an investor comes out and sees was once owned by someone in this community or at some point they were dispossessed of it.”
Gentrification is the process whereby the character of a poor urban area is changed by wealthier people moving in, improving housing, and attracting new businesses, typically displacing current inhabitants in the process.
Developer Bruni Rodriguez of Elysium Builders is keenly aware of how neighbors perceive the homes his family’s business is building. However, he said they’re aggressively working to keep the homes priced for the community.
“We realized that people want to live here that have grown up their whole life, they don’t want to leave,” Rodriguez said. “We don’t want them to leave. In fact, we want them to come back home. Even if they go to college, we want them to come back here. Our hope is that we provide a value in that the product is at a good enough to where they are able to still come.”
Rodriguez gave Balogun a tour of a four-bedroom three-bath home priced at $350,000. It’s the top end of their pricing.
“This house specifically would go up to a million dollars anywhere else. In the Heights, maybe $600,000 to $800,000,” Rodriguez explained. “We were able to bring our cost low, we want to make sure the cost for the end consumer is still quite low.”
Fitzgerald Muhammad believes the pricing is reasonable for the community.
Pricing was one of the topics Fitzgerald Muhammad had with Rodriguez during a recent meeting.
“It was a benchmark because we had been trying to reach out to the developers in the community,” he said.
Along with pricing, Fitzgerald Muhammad is trying to get the Rodriguezs to get their investors or other developers to build more than housing.
“Acres Homes should not be viewed as simply an outpost or place to go in a build unit and take the money and leave because we need holistic and total development in the community,” Fitzgerald Muhammad said.
He said the neighborhood needs more development, such as grocery stores, entertainment outlets, and health centers.
There are several available plots of land, including one across the street from Fitzgerald Muhammad’s home.
It’s land his family once owned.
He’s sold it to the Rodriguezes but hasn’t shared with them that it was his family’s.
“Back in the 1930s, my grandfather operated a full-service grocery store right on this property up until the 60s,” he said. “I loved it. I’d go there to eat the Dreamsicles and ice cream. He’d run me out every time.”
Fitzgerald Muhammad believes the Elysium group could build a grocery store.
“This is a beautiful community, beautiful place to live, with beautiful people in it,” Fitzgerald Muhammad said. “I think it behooves us to embrace the people that want to come but invite them to be a part of the community.
