Architecture in Fort Worth
After sitting in limbo for years over a lease dispute with the proprietor of The Original Mexican Eats Café, Derek Muzquiz is finally beginning to see the full commercial value of the real estate he owns in the 4700 block of Camp Bowie Boulevard take root.
Four of the six spaces on the strip on the bricks have been leased, he says.
The home of the former long-standing Mexican restaurant, estimated at 2,600 square feet, is not among them. The former home of the The Original is still under renovation.
However, there have been plenty of inquiries, he says. After all, nothing says “location, location, location” quite like property on the bricks.
“It's come a long way in the short amount of time that we've had it,” says Muzquiz, who took over management of the property from his father last year. “But I couldn't really be happier with the way it's been going.”
Three women’s retail boutiques have either begun doing business there or soon will be. Those are Color Game, Dos Femmes, and Honey Loves Boho.
A salon, Bowie and Byers, is taking over another space.
It’s all a grand turnabout for Muzquiz, whose family spent seven years in a lease dispute with Robert Self, owner of The Original. The sustained period of waiting on a remedy came with financial consequences.
The property has been in Muzquiz’s family since his grandfather, who owned a TV and radio shop within the strip, bought the property years ago. His grandmother and father both owned it. Muzquiz’s father passed it on to him last year.
It was the lease his grandmother Leticia Grimaldo and Self signed 20 years ago that became the subject of dispute. Self believed the terms were in perpetuity, an agreement that, of course, became financially unsustainable at $3.85 a square foot. A court ruled in favor of Muzquiz last year. Self declined an opportunity to stay, Muzquiz says.
“We were just kind of strapped,” Muzquiz says. “The lawsuit took seven years, and during that time, we didn't do anything to the building because we didn't know how the lawsuit was going to turn out. So, we just kind of let it go, but I'm just glad that we were able to take possession of it and actually start to rebuild it.”
Muzquiz enlisted the help of retail neighbor and commercial real estate broker/developer Rodger Chieffalo to help him market the property.
Muzquiz has done the rebuild himself. His portfolio also includes several residential properties. He does business with his residential properties as A Quality Home Repair.
There is also still the matter of the parking lot on the side and back of the property. Self owns it and has cordoned off the lot with an interlocking fence barrier, so as to prevent its use.
Muzquiz says he has spoken to Self about acquiring it, but they have yet to agree on its value.
“It just doesn't look very good for the community, for one,” Muzquiz says. “All these little fences up everywhere. But that's his property and I guess that's what he can do.”
The matter has not yet become an issue for would-be lessees, he says.
“They're not too concerned about it.”