ABOUT JIM LAKE COMPANIES

Before there was a Company, there were just properties… and like all good history before there was property, there were people. The Jim Lake Companies history is a story of people with vision, integrity, and a desire to serve their city and their clients.

THE EARLY YEARS

In 1964, after a successful sales career with IBM and as an acquiring agent for Trammell Crow, Jim Lake, Sr. combined his entrepreneurial spirit and business background to form Jim Lake Companies. With a mission to develop industrial buildings in key DFW areas, Jim Lake, Sr. built his first speculative office/warehouse building at 521 J Place in Plano, Texas, which we still own today.

In the 1970s, Jim Lake Companies expanded its development base by adding speculative projects in Brownsville and office, retail, and apartments in Austin and San Antonio. However, after the real estate slump of the early 1970s, JLC chose to focus on a narrow market in Dallas’s old Trinity Industrial District, now known as the Dallas Design District.

In the 1980s, the two went on to build several additional buildings in what is now known as the Dallas Design District and over 250,000 SF of office/warehouse in the Plano area. They also increased their development of incubator spaces in suburban D/FW markets by building and leasing over eleven buildings in the Plano/Richardson market.

As opportunities for development in the Trinity Market area were reduced, Jim Lake Companies began purchasing, renovating, and leasing quasi-retail buildings in the North Oak Cliff area in 1983. JLC was instrumental in the formation of what is now known as the Bishop Arts District. Our long term investment in the area is reflected in our continued operation of these historical buildings that are home to over 30 unique shops and restaurants.

The vision behind this Company was to provide full-service property management and light maintenance work to all Jim Lake Company owned properties. Jim Lake, Jr. joined the Company in 1985 with a brokerage background and a passion for development. He began to acquire, renovate, and redevelop properties in the Trinity Industrial District with a strategy of offering a wider range of product to the Jim Lake Company portfolio.

In the late 1980s, Jim Lake Company’s focus was effective management, leasing, and dispositions to withstand the longest real estate recession in history. Jim Lake Companies emerged with a solid team of developers, brokers, and managers that had weathered the storm and was poised to expand its services and holdings. A brokerage division of Jim Lake Company was formed in 1991 by Jim Lake, Jr., Mike Morgan, and Doug Molny with a staff of four brokers to complement and expand JLC’s services to outside parties.

During the first decade of the new millennium, Jim Lake Companies developed an expertise in Adaptive Urban Redevelopment by building on the continued success of the Bishop Arts District and moved forward with new visionary projects. In the Dallas Design District, Jim Lake, Jr. and Mike Morgan partnered with Alpha Barnes to redevelop the first mixed use project in the District, called Trinity Loft, which began a wave of redevelopment in the District. Jim Lake, Jr. also converted an old abandoned warehouse into a new award winning Design Center named International on Turtle Creek (IOTC).

Jim Lake, Jr. and his wife Amanda Moreno-Lake (also known as the Queen of Oak Cliff) began to partner in 2014 to focus on properties south of Dallas, while continuing to grow their portfolios in Oak Cliff. To date, the visionary couple has purchased historic buildings in Waxahachie, Ennis and Corsicana.

CHAMPIONING
FOR THE FUTURE

As with all good stories, all chapters have an ending before another one can be opened. Mike Morgan and Douglas Molny have both retired after many years of partnership with Jim Lake, Sr. and Jim Lake, Jr. Though Jim Lake Sr. is no longer with us, his legacy lives on. Jim Lake, Jr. and Amanda Moreno-Lake now own, manage, and oversee all aspects of JLC and what it has grown into over the years. Apart from managing and owning over 1.5 million SF of real estate, Jim and Amanda have both poured their lives out for the City of Dallas by serving on countless committees as Board Members or Chairs, and both are frequently featured in various publications as leading voices in commercial real estate in the DFW area.

A CLOSER LOOK

OUR LEADERSHIP

JIM LAKE, JR.

CEO

jimlake@jimlakeco.com

A native Dallasite, Jim Lake, Jr. graduated from Baylor University in 1981 with a BBA in Real Estate. He began his career that same year as a Commercial Real Estate Broker and then entered the real estate development business at Jim Lake Companies in 1985. After weathering the commercial real estate recession of the late 1980s, he co-founded Jim Lake, Inc. and Jim Lake Partners, LLC to focus on acquiring existing buildings and redeveloping them, building on the company’s experience of creating the Bishop Arts District in North Oak Cliff. As his acquisitions grew, and the Dallas Design District matured, Jim Lake Companies has become a leader in Adaptive Urban Redevelopment with pioneering projects such as Trinity Loft, the first residential and mixed use project in the Design District; International on Turtle Creek, a 158,000 square foot repurposed parts warehouse into a design center; Jefferson Tower, an entire city block of historic buildings JLC completed in 2015; the Waxahachie Town Square redevelopment; Downtown Ennis and Cedar Hill. Jim is former Chairman of the Board of the Stemmons Corridor Business Association, was named one of Dallas’ Top 500 CEOs by D Magazine in 2016, has won the Business of the Year award from the Oak Cliff Chamber of Commerce and a Preservation Achievement award for Jefferson Tower in 2017 and The Mayor’s House in 2020. And he currently serves at the Chairman of the Oak Cliff Commerce Board of Directors.

AMANDA MORENO-LAKE

PRESIDENT OF REDEVELOPMENT, PARTNER

amlake@jimlakeco.com

Amanda Moreno-Lake has been in the construction and real estate business for over twenty years. She currently serves as the President of Redevelopment at Jim Lake Companies and as an active partner in several investments. She has proudly completed the redevelopment of the downtown square in Waxahachie. Her newest projects and efforts are going towards the redevelopment of the downtown square in Ennis and Cedar Hill.  Aside from real estate and construction, Amanda has owned her own fair share of businesses including a beauty salon and western-wear store. In addition to Amanda’s business operations and partnerships, she has been a part several boards including the DART Board of Directors (2013-2021), Dallas Arboretum Board of Directors, Oak Cliff Chamber of Commerce Board, Fair Park Texas Foundation Board of Directors, UNT Dallas Foundation Board, UTSW Redbird Community Forum Board, and the Blue Guardian Foundation Board. Amanda is the co-founder of Mammogram Poster Girls and is actively involved with their community. For the past three years (2020-2022), D Magazine has featured Amanda in their Dallas 500 of Most Influential Leaders.