Reddix creates hub for women entrepreneurs

Angela Reddix is making it her business to create economic opportunities for women.

“That is my absolute heart’s desire — to make it easier for girls and women to have access to wealth, and that means understanding it. That means being able to see it. That means being able to be invited in rooms where they can learn more about it,” says Reddix, president and CEO of ARDX, a Norfolk-based health care management and IT consulting firm.

In January, Reddix opens The Mustard Seed Place — which Reddix calls a “modern-day girls’ club.” It will lease business spaces to women entrepreneurs with an aim to develop a community that will uplift and support each other, Reddix says.

Reddix purchased the former Tidewater Community College Visual Arts Center in downtown Portsmouth in April 2023 for $1.9 million. She considered developing it into apartments and commercial space but saw a chance to create the hub for women entrepreneurs instead.

The Mustard Seed Place feels more like a mall than a coworking space or office building. The first two floors of the 33,000-square-foot center will open in January with 11 tenants, including The Well on High, a mental wellness and healing boutique run by clinical psychologist Stacie Otey-Scott.

“The Mustard Seed Place offers an opportunity for me to collaborate with other women business owners,” Otey-Scott says, adding that “the overall concept behind it and the opportunity for us to come together and support one another was really appealing to me.”

Other tenants include a production studio run by Stephanie Walters, CEO of Dream Pusher, a media production company; a therapy kitchen and café; a space for Old Dominion University’s Women’s Business Center; and a yoga and dance studio run by Reddix’s daughter.

Each tenant receives a roughly 2,000-square-foot space under a discounted five-year lease that includes utilities and mentoring from Reddix.

Reddix is also starting a monthly membership program at The Mustard Seed Place, “Thrive Tribe,” which will provide access to building community spaces as well as a speaker series and a certification program through ODU’s Institute for Innovation & Entrepreneurship. Membership starts at
$99 per month.

The third floor holds a 12,000-square-foot, 450-person space for private events like weddings. Opening in April, Très Élevé will harken back to the building’s history as a department store, The Famous, which sold wedding dresses on the third floor.

This story has been updated since publication.