This plaza has been the launchpad for Black entrepreneurs in Fort Worth for decades

Tiffany Moore lived in Highland Hills on the south side of Fort Worth as a child, but she describes Chamberlain Plaza in the Lake Como community — about 10 miles away and southwest of downtown Fort Worth — as the place she and her cousins were raised.

They would meet there everyday after school and spend the majority of their summers at the plaza on 4601-4607 Horne St., where they would do their homework and help out around their family’s businesses, which were in the plaza.

Moore, 48, remembers she wasn’t allowed to go across the street to The Green, a green space used for baseball, summer camps, and football practice for the former Como Junior/Senior High School. The Green is now the location for the Como Community Center.

She would work at her grandparents’ beauty salon and construction company, where her mother also worked. She filed paperwork, cleaned, and answered phone calls. When her mother and grandparents got busy, she or her cousins would sneak to the corner store next door and buy Now and Later candy, which was small enough to hide in their pockets.

Chamberlain Plaza served as a foundation for the entrepreneurial spirit of generations of Black-owned businesses and others in the Como community, Moore said.

Moore describes Como as a place where families and friends have been raised together for decades but have seen many buildings from their childhoods disappear. Now, Chamberlain Plaza will be preserved, thanks to a historic designation approved by the city on Feb. 13.

“We lose so much, and as my generation is getting older, to be able to still see some of the same things from my childhood is big for us,” Moore said. “Because my generation celebrates the fact that we’re from that community, being from Como has a whole vibe in itself that feels to me like a whole community thing.”

A legacy Black entrepreneurs

Elouise Burrell, Moore’s aunt, applied for the historic designation. She is part of the Lake Como Cemetery Association, which works to preserve the historic Lake Como Cemetery. She and others from the Como community thought other sites and businesses deserve historic designation.

Burrell’s parents, Pearlie and Roosevelt Burrell Jr., owned Chamberlain Plaza and operated their businesses in the plaza.

“I’m proud of my parents for what they accomplished,” Burrell said. “The legacy that they left us, that there’s still businesses that are operating there, that it has offered opportunities to over 120 different African American entrepreneurs.”

Four businesses currently operate from the plaza: Legacy Cuts Barbershop, Lake Como House of Beauty, 360 Fit & Nutrition Club, and Cox Lawnmower Service.

The Chamberlain Plaza land was purchased in 1961 by the Burrells, and the building was constructed in 1965. It opened in 1970. Today, the plaza is owned by their children.

The Burrells moved from the Northside neighborhood to Como in the early ‘60s and settled in a home on the 5500 block of Bonnell Avenue behind a group of businesses. Pearlie started her own hair salon at 5439 Bonnell Ave., which is now Rivertree Academy.

She asked her husband to find a new place for her to operate her business, and that is when Roosevelt found the lot on the corner of Carver Drive and Horne Street that became Chamberlain Plaza.

Pearlie owned her business, called Burrell and Williams Hair Salon, with her sister, Mary, and they did hair for church and business women in the area. Her husband Roosevelt established Roosevelt Burrell Jr. & Son Construction Co. Inc., a residential and commercial building construction company. The company built everything from homes for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to statewide highway construction projects.

Plaza exemplifies historical heritage

A staff report created by the Historic and Cultural Landmarks Commission, says Chamberlain Plaza “exemplifies the cultural, economic, social, ethnic or historical heritage of the Lake Como Community and the City of Fort Worth.”

Roosevelt Burrell Jr. left a trust to his children, Elouise, Ronita, and Earl for his properties, which included Chamberlain Plaza, that they had inherited. He died in January 2023. His wife Pearlie died in August 1995.

Ronita Burrell Moore, Roosevelt and Pearlie’s daughter and Tiffany Moore’s mother, says the values of hard work and sacrifice she has now as an entrepreneur and business owner can be traced back to her time working at Chamberlain Plaza with her parents.

She worked in her mother’s hair salon as a nail technician and was an office administrator at Chamberlain Plaza. In the 1980s, she operated her own business out of the plaza called Cuticles Nail Shop, which later closed.

For Ronita Burrell Moore, the plaza was like its own daycare for her children and others. They would learn the basics of entrepreneurship, such as finances, administration, speaking with professionals, and construction.

She is proud of how the plaza functions as a landmark for non-Como residents on where they are in the community. Also, as a small business owner, she understands the importance of starting somewhere, and the plaza became a springboard for small business owners to expand.

“Being a small business owner, if you’ve been given that opportunity, you never know where that takes you,” Burrell Moore said.

She now owns and operates, alongside her daughter Tiffany, Full Press Power Clean, a pavement maintenance company that started in Chamberlain Plaza. The mother/daughter duo used to bid on contracts from the city or state for Roosevelt’s company as part of their Pavement Maintenance division, which started in 1987. His company closed in 2018, but Burrell Moore and her daughter started Full Press Power Clean in 2019 to continue Roosevelt’s legacy.

A sense of community

Elizabeth Sandoval-Brown owns 360 Fit & Nutrition, a store that provides protein bars, energy tea, Zumba fitness classes and holistic nutrition instruction in Chamberlain Plaza. Sandoval-Brown was born and raised in Como after her family emigrated from Mexico in the ‘90s.

She describes Como as a welcoming and down-to-earth environment. She has always loved exercising and when a former fitness instructor left Como nearly a decade ago she wanted to continue an exercise program. She sees it as important in a lower-income community where fitness programs are usually expensive and health is not a priority for many, Sandoval-Brown says.

She started a small exercise group which met at Lake Como Park and at the old Como Community Center. Eventually, she decided she wanted a brick and mortar location and met Elouise Burrell. Her business has now been a staple in the community for nearly five years.

Sandoval-Brown describes her business as a safe place and open environment for her customers, mainly women, to relax. People come from Aledo and Weatherford to exercise alongside her neighbors and friends regardless of race or background, she said.

“You feel really grateful and blessed that you’re able to touch so many other lives within the community but still in your community,” Sandoval-Brown said.