Growth Ventures Into New Group, Partnership

Mitchell Massey and three partners have formed a new real estate development and management company called Growth Ventures LLC of Fayetteville.
That doesn’t mean Growth Group, Massey’s former company, has been dissolved. He’s still working with Growth Group partners Morgan Hooker and Ward Davis on several projects. However, any new deals and some existing deals will be handled by Growth Ventures, Massey said, who is executive vice president and willl be focused on business development and funding.
Growth Group’s biggest customer was Massey Holdings, which is controlled by Massey. It owned the developments and hired Growth Group to execute those projects.
“Massey Holdings will maintain ownership in most of those deals, with the exception of those that we move into Growth Ventures,”
Massey said. “Growth Group still will finish some existing projects.”
Each of Massey’s new partners, Scott McClain of The McClain Group, Rick Hancock of Hancock Properties and Luke Terrell of Diamond Holdings, are contributing a few of their own ongoing projects into Growth Ventures. Combined, the new company is managing about 25 projects.
Both Hancock and Terrell have teamed with Massey before.
Hancock, who will serve as vice president of operations, has a background in insurance and real estate. Terrell graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Arkansas with a degree in finance and said he will handle the “business side of the business” as vice president of business administration.
“I think we’ve got a good team here and that’s what it takes to be successful,” Hancock said.
McClain founded the Little Rock-based company FoxCor Inc. and has managed more than a $1 billion in projects across the United States and into places such as China and the Caribbean. His national experience mixed with the local knowledge of Massey, Hancock and Terrell will allow Growth Ventures to reach farther than the regionally-based Growth Group.
“It’s much the same of what Mitchell done in the past,” said McClain, who’ll serve as president of Growth Ventures. “We just want to add a little broader perspective to it.”
The company will work as a “development execution team” that can take on deals in cooperation with developers or independently. The focus will be on single-family and multi-family subdivisions as well as hospitality, retail and industrial projects. The company currently is snatching up large tracts of land in the more “blighted” areas of Little Rock and plans to take an aggressive role in helping revitalize those areas.
Growth Ventures also will work to identify companies, which have real estate development as part of their business models, that may need help. It recently helped stabilize the operating company for Arkansas Car Wash Systems, which is now known as Drive Clean LLC and owned by Growth Group.