With fewer and fewer development opportunities left in Southlake, the nature of the city’s growth challenges are changing, said Mark Guilbert, president & CEO of the Southlake Chamber of Commerce.
In this interview, Guilbert spoke with the Dallas Business Journal about challenges and opportunities in one of the state and the country’s wealthiest cities and how the housing market is maturing.
What challenges have growth brought to Southlake? How is the chamber addressing them?
Transportation and traffic have certainly been an issue. The city and state are taking the lead in working on that, but that is something that everyone is experiencing here for sure.
On the more business level, it’s fierce competition. As the Southlake market matures and there is more disposable income for individuals who live here, it attracts a lot of similar industry performers.
Our No. 1 industry at the chamber is medical. You might think it would be financial given that we are in Southlake, but it’s medical. It’s a huge percentage of our membership. We have a lot of medical tourism in Southlake. People come from surrounding suburbs and communities and spend the day here getting treatments and spending money in our shops. There has been a windfall, but it’s come with fierce competition. Keeping business in business is the name of the game in Southlake.
What are your goals in terms of the number of people living in Southlake and working in Southlake?
Southlake has its own character and personality, and a lot of that is, a lot of people who live in Southlake don’t necessarily work in Southlake.
It’s young money. A lot of them are mid-level executives or above who tend to come into the Metroplex, live here for a few years, and get promoted into something else. It’s a very dynamic community of people coming and going.
There’s also a segment of people who live in other communities that come to Southlake each day to work here. It’s interesting to see the transition of who’s in town in the day versus night.
An expanded version of this story can be found by clicking here.
