Maybe it was a midlife crisis. Maybe it was something deeper. As Ivan Garcia neared 50, he found himself staring down the big questions: Why am I here? What’s my purpose? When he picked up the author Simon Sinek’s motivational book Find Your Why, one prompt forced Garcia to reflect—and it changed everything for him; his family-run company, Garcia Properties; and a well-traveled slice of South City.
The prompt was simple. If you want to know what you should be doing, ask yourself this: “If you were guaranteed success at something and money was no factor, what would you do?” Garcia immediately knew his answer. Wouldn’t it be nice to see South Kingshighway—this little stretch that our office is on, and that we’ve been drawn to for whatever reason—reenergized and full of positive things?” The next day, Ivan asked his older brother and business partner, Berto, the same question. Berto shared the same answer. So the Garcias made a list—about a dozen buildings they coveted on the main drag—and got to work.
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“Within a matter of three years, we bought every single one of them,” Berto says.
Garcia Properties is on a mission to flip the perception of South Kingshighway, working not only to change the types of businesses you might expect to find on this busy—sometimes dangerous—arterial road, but changing the name of the neighborhood itself.
To this end, the company in recent years has branched beyond its bailiwick of real estate and rental property management to enter the hospitality business, opening and operating The Golden Hoosier (3707 S. Kingshighway) in 2021 and Bud’s Pizza & Beer (3805 S. Kingshighway) in 2024. It was an important pivot—the first step in changing the narrative of Kingshighway—but the brothers know their work is far from done.
“It’s really difficult to change the narrative of what kinds of businesses should go on these blocks,” Berto says. “It’s a lot more difficult than I thought, frankly. We thought we would do the Golden Hoosier and everyone would be like, ‘Oh, I want to be there, too.’ That hasn’t been the case. When we fix a building and list it for rent, it’s all of the same types of businesses that were there before who want to get back in—predatory lenders, cell phone stores selling anything but cell phones. We’ve fought so hard to secure these properties and provide things that people from the neighborhood could do and enjoy.”
That’s not to say there hasn’t been success in the Garcia brothers’ plan. Plenty of it, in fact. On the 3700 block, businesses such as Pipers Tea & Coffee, Ansgar Leather, and Top Flight Barber Shop have moved in. On the 3800 block, Garcia Properties has rehabbed the massive Kingswa building with nearly each of the 27 renovated units now leased. Up the street, the company bought the former Uncle Bill’s Pancake House with plans to restore it, and it has additional designs of opening several mixed-use developments on plots of land creeping toward Arsenal. Crucially, the company is working to open a 1.25-acre parking lot to accommodate shoppers and residents alike.
But perhaps the heaviest lift is cosmetic: The Garcias want to rebrand the area as The Crown District—a name that nods to the block’s royal themes, from the “king” in Kingshighway to neighborhood staples like The Royale Food & Spirits (3132 S. Kingshighway).
“It seems like this is what we’re supposed to be doing,” Ivan says. “Deep down, we really want to see this area change in a positive way.”
