Behind the Deal: Why a Fort Worth Firm Bought 38 Acres Near Dallas’ Design District

By Seth Bodine, Dallas Business Journal, March 7, 2025

Fort Worth-based M2G Ventures’ cofounder Jessica Miller Essl saw the recent acquisition of the Inwood Design Center as a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Part of the reason comes down to pure scale. The center, 93% leased, stretches 38 acres across light industrial, showrooms and retail spaces. Major tenants include Crate & Barrel, White Glove Storage and Delivery, Community Coffee and Neiman Marcus.

“We were pleased to get the tiger by the tail, so to speak,” Essl said.

The acquisition of the center is one of a handful of recent purchases made with the firm’s equity partner, Grey Swan I. That includes the 50,000-square-foot mixed-use property in south Austin called ALCO and a 215,000-square-foot industrial building in Garland called Northgate. M2G spoke more its plans with the Inwood Design Center and its acquisition strategy.

“Our goal is for this one to be the next best benchmark for M2G, and that’s on year 10 going into year 11, so just keep adding to that success. We can’t take the foot off the pedal, though. There’s a lot of eyeballs on this one.” – Jessica Miller Essl, Co-Founder, M2G Ventures

Brett Zimmerman, M2G Ventures’ acquisitions team principal, said the Inwood Design Center has been on the company’s radar for years. The company has been making investments in the area near Dallas’ Design District and the West Brookhollow submarket, including the 250,000 square foot PROTO Park, which the company last year sold to a California firm, and the six building 112,741 square foot campus called The Archetype at 3131 Irving Boulevard. The area is unique, he said, because it’s close to downtown Dallas, Dallas Love Field Airport and several high-income neighborhoods. At the same time, there’s industrial buildings.

Part of the investment strategy, he said, is buying in locations where it’s difficult to create new supply.

“You have these typically older buildings where we’ve gone into the past and upgraded them, and done things like paint and signage and lighting and landscaping to really provide a very modern product, but in a location where it’d be really difficult to replicate that same product,” Zimmerman said.

Some upgrades to the Inwood Design Center might mean upgraded building exteriors and storefronts, parking improvements, signage and enhanced lighting and public art. The goal is to create spaces where tenants want to be, Essl said. M2G will have more specific redevelopment plans for the Inwood Design Center in early summer this year.

“I think this one’s going to be fun,” Essl said. “We always try and have fun with what we do. I think this asset’s been the perfect kind of venture for us going forward into kind of seeing the next level of what M2G can do.”

M2G has acquired 5.1 million square feet and sold $1.6 billion since it was founded in 2014 by Essl and her sister, Susan Miller. Past projects under the firm’s belt include the Foundry District in Fort Worth, purchased in 2022 by North Carolina-based Asana Partners. M2G was also involved with the 180,000-square-foot mixed-use district of the Fort Worth Stockyards called Mule Alley. The firm is also a development partner on the nine-figure expansion of the Stockyards.