Why I’m Creating a Boutique Hotel in Fort Worth, Texas
My name is Jonathan Morris and I am an entrepreneur. I look for opportunities to bring value to people by building community and creating spaces for people to enjoy. In short, I connect people with services, products and environments to improve their lives. I take particular pride in doing so with very deliberate intention of forcing cultures to collide, because I believe that this is where new ideas thrive. I take ideas in my head and build processes to execute them day in and day out. Not with perfection, but with grit and the pursuit of excellence. For the last 5 years, that’s what I’ve done for a living here in Fort Worth. In return, this community has been incredibly supportive, encouraging and inspiring to me to continue to do so. Creating not just jobs, but careers in my city is something that I’m extremely proud of and I look forward to doing a lot more of for a very long time in Fort Worth.
Located just adjacent to the soon-to-open Dickies Arena, in what was the old Dry Ice building on Byers Avenue, my business partner, Allen Mederos and I’s proposed project is a 19-room hotel with a lobby bar. Though small, we believe we can have significant cultural impact in a way that represents Fort Worth well to the world and tells them a little bit about who we are as a community. I view this project as a massive opportunity to connect visitors to the places and people that we love in Fort Worth. Though I may be biased, I believe that the spirit of entrepreneurship is at the core of Fort Worth’s growing identity as a city on the rise and we as small business owners have a particularly important role in shaping our not-so-small town’s place in conversations happening around the nation and around the world. Allen and I’s past successes have come as a result of years dedicated to due diligence in learning and understanding industries and markets that at one time we had limited experience in. That being said, as the granular details of the day-to-day operations of this project are being thoughtfully decided, the spirit of what we want to represent and the need for such a space, guides our vision. What an incredible opportunity we have to collaborate with the local artists, creatives and other small businesses that we call neighbors and friends. This hotel will be a way to introduce Fort Worth’s people and places that we love to a world that needs to know us.
I’ll admit, it has been particularly surprising and disappointing to hear complaints from our fellow neighbors as to what this hotel will be. As residents of Arlington Heights ourselves, we have been thoughtful of the impact this new business will have on our fellow neighbors and have been proactive, transparent and even compromising to bring this project to life. We’ve listened to feedback from our neighbors and made modifications to address concerns. Our intention has been, and will continue to be good neighbors and add to our community as we have for the last decade.
Over the last few months we’ve heard everything from “the developers are looking to create a “Party Palace” to “this is going to increase crime in the neighborhood.” How some have arrived at these conclusions is beyond me. Word has gotten back to me that the neighborhood association is sharing details of how we intend to operate and manage our business model, much of which has been news to me. What is based in fact however, is that I have a track record of executing on ideas that impact Fort Worth both economically and culturally. Fear of something new and change in our neighborhood has dominated conversations. To be 100% transparent, the opportunity for change dominates my thoughts as well. Why? Because I’ve gotten the taste of what it’s like to create something new in my city that positively impacts the lives of people that I live amongst. And that drives me.
The barber shop that I wanted to exist in Fort Worth in 2014, did not exist in Fort Worth. I created it. The grooming supply retail store that I wanted to exist in Fort Worth in 2017, did not exist. I created it. The hotel that I’d like to exist in Fort Worth, does not exist in 2019. I’m going to create it.
Will our 19-rooms solve our city’s hotel room shortage? Not exactly. But we believe that this project is a homegrown, locally-owned solution to the city’s hotel room shortage through the lens of entrepreneurship. Our goal is to satiate a traveler that thus far, has not been spoken to by Fort Worthians. That creative-class of millennial visitors is coming to Fort Worth from all over the world and we want them to feel welcomed. We’re not big box hoteliers and we don’t intend on creating the same solutions that other hotels will. We want to create a new space for locals and visitors to feel inspired by. It’s going to take a community breathe life into this vision and we hope that you will support us in doing so. Please demonstrate your support of small business alongside us.
