Writer Peter Simek describes today’s Red Bird Mall, located at the intersection of U.S. Highway 67 and Interstate 20 in southern Dallas, as feeling “like the setting of a 1980s teen horror film, replete with the surreal faded painted palm trees in the Acapulco-themed mural that wraps around the center atrium.” One man the setting didn’t scare off is Dallas’ Peter Brodsky, a Brooklyn-born, former private equity investor who snapped up the bedraggled, 1970s-era center in 2015 and has set out to remake it, against all odds.
As Simek explains in a feature story in D CEO’s September issue, Brodsky’s Red Bird effort is as much about confronting and changing stereotypes about southern Dallas and its economy as it is about making money. “What I noticed after spending a lot of time in southern Dallas was that the perception that a lot of people in north Dallas have of southern Dallas is just totally skewed and over-simplified,” the businessman told Simek. “What became very apparent in different parts of southern Dallas is that there are very strong middle-class communities, but a real lack of amenities.”
For a fascinating, up-close look at Brodsky’s struggle to give Red Bird and southern Dallas their due, please check out Simek’s story, right here.
