Houston White runs a North Side barbershop, a noted clothing design and retail shop, and a coffee bar and community space.
Several businesses. One building, at 44th Avenue N. and Humboldt Avenue N., with a nice patio.
White, owner of Houston White Menswear (HWMW), also is a carpenter and hands-on building renovator. And he is a can-do visionary when it comes to his Webber-Camden neighborhood in the northwest end of Minneapolis.
He plans to spend six figures to overhaul and expand his 2008-refurbished, century-old headquarters to almost triple the size over the next couple years.
White envisions it as part of an emerging commercial hub, what he calls Camden Town, along 44th Street, an old, frayed-edge neighborhood that is slowly sprouting new businesses, commercial face-lifts and an improving housing market.
White, 39, who attended North High School and lives a few blocks from his business, espouses "Black Excellence" in his clothing line and endeavors. And he wants to attract more black professionals to open businesses and buy homes in the area. Whether they grew up on the North Side or elsewhere.
"It's beneficial to the neighborhood and to the entire state of Minnesota when black folks do well and young black boys can see positive black men doing good things," said White, ticking off the names of several black professionals who have invested in Webber-Camden in the past couple years.
Newly elected Council Member Phillipe Cunningham announced his candidacy at "Houston White's Men's Room." And White is friends with former Council Member Barbara Johnson, champion of investment in housing and business in the Webber Park-Camden area.