035 - AJ Ramler: Preserving Place, Reimagining Use, and Investing in the Neighborhood

May 28

AJ Ramler didn’t set out to be a developer—he just loved old buildings. In this episode, we sit down with the founder of Proxy Properties to talk about his journey from living in a basement quadplex to leading some of the most ambitious adaptive reuse projects in Oak Cliff. From the historic Struck House to the Oak Cliff Assembly and the Madison Hotel, AJ shares the hard-won lessons of preservation, neighborhood involvement, and balancing community needs with the realities of development. We explore what it means to design for people first, why old buildings resonate, and how investing locally can reshape an entire block.