National Juneteenth Museum Coming to Fort Worth

Civil rights icon Opal Lee’s 100th birthday will mark the first step in the construction of the long-delayed National Juneteenth Museum in her hometown of Fort Worth.

The Southside Community Center, which sits at the future museum site, will be demolished on Oct. 7 to make way for the $70 million museum set to start construction in late 2026 or early 2027, according to the Fort Worth Report.

Lee, a civil rights activist and the “grandmother of Juneteenth,” has campaigned for decades to make it a national holiday by leading 2.5-mile walks around the country to symbolize the 2.5 years it took for the Emancipation Proclamation to reach Texas. At the age of 94, she stood beside President Joe Biden when he signed the bill making Juneteenth a federal holiday in 2021.

The idea for a national museum came from a smaller museum Lee operated before the pandemic near Evans Avenue Plaza. Planning for the museum, which kicked off in 2021, has been plagued by delays, but finally appears to be moving forward.

So far, $50 million has been raised for the project, including a $15 million pledge from the city and a $10 million pledge from the state. The museum will feature 10,000-square-foot galleries, a 250-seat theater, a business incubator, and a food hall.

After she was hospitalized last summer, Lee has mostly been out of the public eye, but she’s planning to attend the Oct. 7 event, her granddaughter Promise Roland told the outlet.

Remember the “Dellionaires”

On June 11, Elon Musk’s space tech company launched the largest IPO in history, instantly minting more than 4,000 new millionaires. Since Musk relocated the company from California in 2024, many of these millionaires live in Texas, specifically in the Rio Grande Valley, where SpaceX is headquartered, and around Austin, which is home to a SpaceX hub. The two vastly different real estate markets are gearing up for the influx of wealth to ratchet up demand for luxury housing.

Million-dollar homes are a rarity in the Rio Grande Valley, so SpaceX millionaires will have to build their own mansion or purchase homes in the region’s proliferating master-planned communities. In Austin, brokers expect something more familiar: a fresh wave of luxury buyers shopping in the $3 million to $10 million range, echoing the “Dellionaire” era set off by Dell’s 1988 IPO.

Braemar divorce gets messy

Monty Bennett’s Ashford is out at hospitality real estate investment trust Braemar Hotels & Resorts, and the separation comes with a $480 million termination fee for the Dallas hotelier’s firm. Braemar’s largest shareholder Al Shams decried the move, calling it “one of the most brazen acts of self-dealing we have ever witnessed in a public company” in a letter to Braemar, and setting off a war of words with Braemar. Shams vowed to take legal action against the parties involved.

Fairmont Austin falters

Fairmont Austin is the latest luxury hotel in Downtown Austin to experience distress after the closure of the Austin Convention Center last year. The $430 million CMBS loan tied to Austin’s largest hotel was transferred to special servicing after cashflow at the property dropped. San Diego billionaire and longtime Republican donor “Papa Doug” Manchester secured the hefty refi loan in 2024 after he tried listing the property for more than $600 million in 2023.

The transfer comes the same month that two high-end downtown hotels went back to lenders. Ron Burkle’s Soho House lost control of The Line Austin after allegedly defaulting on the $172 million loan tied to the property. Realberry, a developer based in Denver, gave back keys to Hyatt Centric during the same foreclosure auction after appearing to default on a $50.5 million loan tied to the hotel.