Episode 34 Isaiah Lee - ”Shreveport-Bossier: My City, My Community, My Home”

Isaiah Lee, Owner of Leeson Real Estate Investment Firm, sits down with Jeffrey Goodman, Director of Marketing and Development for the YMCA of Northwest Louisiana, to answer the following questions:

 

0:50 1. In June of this year you bought 513-519 Milam Street,, the former Rubenstein’s Department Store, for $50,000 and announced a major project to transform the space into The Rubenstein and Landlord Historical Apartments.

 

Tell me what we will eventually find a couple of years from now when we enter these buildings.

 

2:38 2. You are clearly a glass half full person. Twelve years ago you returned to live here and said,

 

“Instead of bashing Shreveport, I saw some great opportunities, and I put my skills to work here.”

 

No city is perfect. And every place, including Shreveport-Bossier, has tremendous room for improvement.

 

What do you attribute your optimism and positive outlook to? Or in other words how do you see opportunity when so many people only see problems and despair?

 

6:58 3. You are the founder and co-owner of Leeson Real Estate Investment Firm. Talk to me about your company and some of the projects you have been and are currently involved with.

 

9:00 4. You seem to be the perfect person for the Rubenstein’s project. From the 1940s to the mid 70s, Rubenstein’s was one of the stars of department stores downtown. But for more than 35 years, these two historic buildings have sat empty.

 

I read this quote of yours where you talk about your appreciation for history and the integrity of old buildings:

 

“I just love the way they’re built. I love the quality of material they’re built out of, how they were built, and the history that’s behind them. You look at them, and there’s some man that probably put six months of his life into really making that building look phenomenal. I just like restoring that.”

 

We live in a time where I feel like so many people just want to build new, forget the past and add to the future. How do you explain your appreciation and reverence for history?

 

15:52 5. As you look around our community, what concerns you the most?

 

23:00 6. What makes you prideful of Shreveport-Bossier?