This old house - is about to be redeveloped

Meet the new developers trying to tackle one of Rib Mountain's most challenging development projects

Developers Tyler Tate (left) and Dr. Stephen Lewellis in front of the old house in Rib Mountain that they aim to redevelop into a mixed-use building.

Tyler Tate happened by the old house many times per day. He lived only a few doors down from a house so decrepit that many who drive past regularly probably don’t notice it.

While the rest of Rib Mountain Drive has been developed into a thriving business district, the old house, grey and molding, and weathered to the point where it looks generally beyond repair, sits on the corner of Rib Mountain Drive and Oriole Lane like a dying reminder to the streetscape’s residential past.

Many probably stopped noticing it, but Tate noticed it. And he, along with a business partner, decided to do something about it.

Redeveloping the impossible

A rendering of what the property would look like once complete, if the project is ultimately approved.

After speaking for some time with Tate, a 24-year-old transplant from Texas who now runs a property management company, Grand Views Real Estate Management, I asked him if he felt he was a little naive in the beginning. “As my business partner would say, you pay for an education one way or another,” Tate says. “Either you pay for it in school, or you pay for it hands-on.”