New Dallas Developments

[Sic'EmBears]

Uptown tower sells to head of Dallas restaurant group that owns El Fenix

Steve Brown

February 9, 2016

Karns said Wednesday that he plans to remodel the concrete-and-glass tower to add two restaurants to the lower levels.

“Having our own space in the base of the building will allow us to create a couple of new restaurant concepts,” Karns said. “We are going to activate the street level of the building and liven it up.

“We will be more than 95 percent leased with our offices going in.”

Moving Firebird Restaurant Group’s offices from a building he owns at 2414 N. Akard St. could lead to additional opportunity.

“Our move frees up that block for immediate development,” Karns said. “Land prices are so high in Uptown that I get lots of calls about that property.”

Karns said eventually those 3.5-acre restaurant buildings with their large surface parking lots will be redeveloped for high-rises.

“That will be a landmark deal – a skyline changer,” Karns said.

Full Article

[texan41]

And with all due respect many Houston people get too caught up in how cool skylines look from afar. Sic'EmBears is right. One Uptown is stellar because it adds a lot more to the neighborhood and increases the desirability of the place than if you you made it look cool for people driving in 75 or 35 or whatever freeway. More and more of these is what creates a true urban environment; they don't have to be very very tall in order to create a good urban environment.

[Sic'EmBears]

Dallas-based investor buys, plans to upgrade Stemmons corridor office building

Candace Carlisle

February 9, 2016

The 127,000-square-foot building at 7610 N. Stemmons Freeway near the corner of Stemmons Freeway and Mockingbird Lane in North Dallas is currently 44 percent occupied and the new ownership group plans to make a number of significant upgrades, said Ken Good, president of Good Signature Management.

Good's plans for the upgrades are to transform the 35-year-old office property — which was originally built by Houston developer Gerald Hines — into one of the top office buildings within the Stemmons corridor of Dallas.

Full Article

[texan41]

No sale. I still prefer 2727 Westlayan and wouldn't trade it for One Uptown. It makes a much bolder statement and commands much more attention - at least in the daylight when you can actually compare what was built - night lighting can really be a crutch for buildings in Dallas and this one's no different. Also, I prefer Westlayan's overall design more. There is a lot more to architecture than urban planning when you are comparing buildings. McKinney is a better street, but 2727 Westlayan is the better building.

I'll take 2727 Westlayan any day over One Uptown. Even it's proximity to high end shopping is better. One Uptown will be great for walking to restaurant and bars, but like everyone else in Texas, I own a car so that doesn't really sell it to me at all.

I realize that this is the Dallas section of HAIF and I don't expect to win anyone over here on this thread, but building for building, Houston won the bigger and better prize in this comparison. You have every right to prefer something built in your own back yard if you want even if it is a bit predictable on this HAIF thread.

Urban design is one thing. Architectural statement is something else. They can certainly go together, but each can be appreciated independently, especially in cities where the vast majority of the area is not really that walkable to begin with. That goes for both Houston and Dallas. Sidewalk interaction is great, but I think most will be viewing these two buildings from their cars and at a distance for a long time to come, not counting the privileged .01% who live in the immediate area.

Luckily, there are quite a few new buildings going up in downtown Houston that will have a nice street presence. One Market, the new Marriott convention hotel and the 2 new Skyhouses built right on the Red Line - among other new midrises downtown are right in the middle of it. They are all totally sidewalk accessible. If the ability to walk to bars and restaurants is your main architectural requirement, there are other buildings in Houston one can look to.

2727 Westlayan is tall building in the distance on the right of the new Amegy Bank HQ tower in the foreground.

Here's a photo that shows the night lighting.

So once again you basically said that 2727 Wesleyan is better because it's taller. But okay okay I digress. We just have different priorities of what we want in our cities.

Edited February 10, 2016 by texan41

[texan41]

Yes you are tight. It does look better.

[Sic'EmBears]

Dmkflyer from Dallasmetropolis has found an FAA proposal for a vacant lot owned by Perot.

The 275' building will be located at Cedar Springs and Dickson.

Construction is planned for September.

Previous proposal:

[nativehoustonion]

This is a ugly building, so bad you have zoning in Dallas.  Yuk!  Does look like Perot.  

Dmkflyer from Dallasmetropolis has found an FAA proposal for a vacant lot owned by Perot.

The 275' building will be located at Cedar Springs and Dickson.

Construction is planned for September.

Previous proposal:

 

[swtsig]

how in god's name is that an "ugly building"??? it may not be a masterpiece but i have no doubt had that building been proposed somewhere in Houston there would be an overwhelmingly positive reaction to it. it's essentially something midway would develop.

 

and why the hell are y'all comparing one uptown to 2727 weslayan? becasue they both share curvy glass facades?? good grief.

Edited February 10, 2016 by swtsig

[Houston19514]

how in god's name is that an "ugly building"??? it may not be a masterpiece but i have no doubt had that building been proposed somewhere in Houston there would be an overwhelmingly positive reaction to it. it's essentially something midway would develop.

 

 

 

Agree, it's a nice-looking building.  But it's a little hard to imagine such a building proposed in Houston getting an overwhelmingly positive reaction here on HAIF.  NOTHING in Houston gets an overwhelmingly positive reaction on HAIF.

 

[texan41]

http://www.dallasnews.com/business/commercial-real-estate/headlines/20160210-att-hires-firm-to-study-downtown-dallas-office-options.ece

Hopefully they do build in Perots site.

[Sic'EmBears]

http://www.dallasnews.com/business/commercial-real-estate/headlines/20160210-att-hires-firm-to-study-downtown-dallas-office-options.ece

Hopefully they do build in Perots site.

AT&T hires firm to study downtown Dallas office options

Steve Brown

February 10, 2016

Communications giant AT&T Inc. has hired commercial real estate agents to evaluate its headquarters office options in the years ahead.

“We regularly assess our real estate requirements everywhere we operate to ensure our owned and leased properties continue to meet our needs,” AT&T spokesman Brad Burns said in a statement. “We’re happy to be headquartered in Dallas.”

AT&T’s options could include a move to a skyscraper Ross Perot Jr.’s Hillwood company wants to build on the north side of downtown.

Downtown officials say that keeping the central business district’s biggest corporate citizen will be a priority.

“Everybody is going to be as aggressive as we possibly can to either keep AT&T where they are or in a new location in the downtown area,” said John Crawford, CEO of the economic development group Downtown Dallas Inc. “We are going to pull out all the stops.”

Award-winning design firm HOK has made renderingsof what the Woodall Rodgers building might look like.

With almost $150 billion in revenue, AT&T is the largest company based in Dallas.

Full Article

[cloud713]

For downtown Dallas' sake, lets hope they move into an existing building or stay put, instead of dumping another huge vacancy on the submarket..

[nativehoustonion]

Downtown Dallas landmark building redo winds up in bankruptcy

http://bizbeatblog.dallasnews.com/2016/01/downtown-dallas-landmark-building-redo-winds-up-in-bankruptcy.html/

 

Another ugly building they should just tear it down.  Just like we need in HTown to tear down the Holiday Inn.

 

[nativehoustonion]

This building looks familiar, meow.

AT&T hires firm to study downtown Dallas office options
Steve Brown
February 10, 2016



Full Article

 

[Sic'EmBears]

Dallas' most popular shopping street is getting an upgrade.

The building improvements of Bardot Place will be located in-between the Apple Store and Restoration Hardware, along Konx St.

View the PDF here.

Nearly 1,000 luxury apartment units are either under construction or planned for the Knox Park neighborhood.

Plans to enhance shopping experience by reducing vehicular lanes, expanding sidewalks, enhancing street level amentieies and adding bicycle lanes are also in the works for Knox.

Read about it here.

Today:

Under Construction:

Street Enhancements:

[JasnoDTX]

  

AT&T should look at other options besides downtown Dallas.

 

Why? Don't you want the Perot Tower to be built? Sounds like you don't.

And why did you post a photo of Houston? Very odd.

 

And yes it does look like 609 Main. This has been discussed already.

 

 

Also you want to tear down the Renaissance Tower just because it has "ugly" headgear? Why not just take the spires off? The bldg itself is actually VERY nice if you've even seen it much closer.

 

Kevin, when your car has a flat tire do you destroy the car? wtf man.

 

Edited February 11, 2016 by JasnoDTX

[JasnoDTX]

2929 Weslayan is gorgeous . One Uptown is also great but  half the size. Not sure why people are comparing. A better comparison might be the Bleu Ciel VS 2929 though its a few stories shorter.

 

Or heck even the Museum Tower VS 2929. Its crazy how Dallas has the taller condo tower out of the two,

 

 

[Sic'EmBears]

Addison office building lands major high-tech tenant on the tollway

Steve Brown

February 11, 2016

A new Addison office building has landed a second major tenant.

The office building is being built by developer Cawley Partners.

With the latest deal, the 200,000-square-foot building is 80 percent rented.

Full Article

[LarryDierker]

DUDE!!!

 

[Sic'EmBears]

New apartment community is coming north of White Rock

Steve Brown

February 12, 2016

A Connecticut-based developer has started construction on a $51 million apartment community located north of Dallas’ White Rock Lake.

The 291-unit Parc at White Rock is being built at Northwest Highway and Lawther Drive and will start opening late this year.

The project is located next to a DART commuter rail station.

Full Article

[Sic'EmBears]

SKYLVL Altitude Media has published a great fly-through showing Park District's scale within the immediate uptown neighborhood.

 

View the video

.

 

From the video:

 

 

[slfunk]

Vacancy has been dropping in downtown Dallas and this has been documented.  Not all buildings that are vacant can be repurposed for what the original design was due to market changes.  Many of them that have been idle in the past, have been converted to residential / hotel and / or require complex financing due to the corrective work needed to bring an older vacant building up to current codes.  Take the in-limbo 501 Elm project for example.  Its an aggressive project and it project alone accounts for about 50% of the 'vacant' office space and will continue to be recorded as such until the someone moves forward with it (which sounds like they are getting closer to inking the deal).   There are only a handful of vacant buildings left to be redeveloped or are being redeveloped.  Also, the parking lots you have stated, a number of them (not all) of projects slated on them for this development cycle. 

 

Some of the trophy tower owners recognize they need to build more convenient parking options to lure / keep tenants.  Leases are being signed and/or renewed with these new projects.  Fountain Place, Bank of America tower, Trammel Crow Center and others all have parking garages in the works for downtown. One is attached to a new hotel / residential / office development and includes parking for an adjacent trophy tower.   All the new towers going up in uptown and suburbs have easy parking solutions.

Edited February 14, 2016 by slfunk

[Houston19514]

  Take the in-limbo 501 Elm project for example.  Its an aggressive project and it project alone accounts for about 50% of the 'vacant' office space and will continue to be recorded as such until the someone moves forward with it (which sounds like they are getting closer to inking the deal). 

 

Did you really mean to say that 501 Elm accounts for about 50% of the vacant office space in the Dallas CBD?  (I presume you meant to say 1401 Elm, not 501.)  But neither comes any where near accounting for 50% of the vacant office space.  There is still more than 6 million square feet of vacant office space in the Dallas CBD.

[Subdude]

There have been a large number of complaints about the off topic / trolling posts in this topic, so a number have been moved to a new topic.  As a reminder, the best response to trolling is to ignore.  Trolls thrive on the attention.  

[slfunk]

Did you really mean to say that 501 Elm accounts for about 50% of the vacant office space in the Dallas CBD?  (I presume you meant to say 1401 Elm, not 501.)  But neither comes any where near accounting for 50% of the vacant office space.  There is still more than 6 million square feet of vacant office space in the Dallas CBD.

 

Sorry your right 1401.  And yes I did mean 50%.  No worries if you don't agree..... You're one of the chronic negative posters when it comes to anything DFW.

Edited February 16, 2016 by slfunk

[Houston19514]

Sorry your right 1401.  And yes I did mean 50%.  No worries if you don't agree..... You're one of the chronic negative posters when it comes to anything DFW.

 

LOL   It's not a matter of disagreement, dude.  Some things are just facts.  FACT:  There is still more than 6 Million square feet of vacant office space in downtown Dallas.  FACT:  1401 Elm has nowhere near 3 million square feet (closer to 1 1/4 million square feet.  FACT: 1 1/4 million is not about 50% of 6 million.  About 20% would be more accurate. 

 

And that assumes that you are correct that the building is and will continue to be recorded as part of the inventory "until the someone moves forward with it."  1401 Elm is almost certainly not included in the current office space inventory because it is not currently occupiable as office space.  So here in the real world, 1401 probably actually comprises about 0% of the vacant downtown Dallas office space.

Edited February 17, 2016 by Houston19514

[BigFootsSocks]

Calm down Dwight Shrute...

[slfunk]

how in god's name is that an "ugly building"??? it may not be a masterpiece but i have no doubt had that building been proposed somewhere in Houston there would be an overwhelmingly positive reaction to it. it's essentially something midway would develop.

 

and why the hell are y'all comparing one uptown to 2727 weslayan? becasue they both share curvy glass facades?? good grief.

Interesting people's takes. I agree the buildings are good looking and were designed by a Houston based firm. They have designed similar type projects in a very similar vernacular style that are under construction currently along I-10.  Wish people posting on these forums would keep in mind design is subjective..... and stop knocking DFW so much in these sub forums as a round about way to elevate Houston.... Good things are happening in both cities and negative discussions / predictions are not productive.

[Houston19514]

Interesting people's takes. I agree the buildings are good looking and were designed by a Houston based firm. They have designed similar type projects in a very similar vernacular style that are under construction currently along I-10.  Wish people posting on these forums would keep in mind design is subjective..... and stop knocking DFW so much in these sub forums as a round about way to elevate Houston.... Good things are happening in both cities and negative discussions / predictions are not productive.

 

FWIW, posting false information is also not productive.

Edited February 18, 2016 by Houston19514

[slfunk]

LOL   It's not a matter of disagreement, dude.  Some things are just facts.  FACT:  There is still more than 6 Million square feet of vacant office space in downtown Dallas.  FACT:  1401 Elm has nowhere near 3 million square feet (closer to 1 1/4 million square feet.  FACT: 1 1/4 million is not about 50% of 6 million.  About 20% would be more accurate. 

 

And that assumes that you are correct that the building is and will continue to be recorded as part of the inventory "until the someone moves forward with it."  1401 Elm is almost certainly not included in the current office space inventory because it is not currently occupiable as office space.  So here in the real world, 1401 probably actually comprises about 0% of the vacant downtown Dallas office space.

Will agree to disagree. Your analysis is based on a snap shot of what office space is currently vacant and does not include all the projects in development / proposed / underway / stength of the market that the private community uses to determine if a project if viable to move forward. The latter is what I base my anaylsis on as well as the development community.  

 

To my point, 3 sample cases - 1700 Pacific still shows as available office on a number of reports, but is fully re-opened now as a Hilton Garden Hotel with residents above.  BOFA tower in downtown Dallas has seen big uptick in leasing where the bar graphs a couple years ago showed it mostly vacant due to some tenants moving out but today it shows mostly leased after finishing an upgrade.  Thanksgiving tower - Its bar graph shows mostly vacant right now but doesn't reflect what is going on with the project. Its undergoing an overhaul and just had a big tenant move in from California last year in the lower floors with the upper floors currently vacant while they are upgraded in preps for the ongoing negotiations of new leases that are in the works but not reflected on current surveys.

 

DFW absorbed 2.3 million SF of office space in 2014 and 5 million by end of 2015. As of mid 2015, DFW had about 100,000 new jobs in a 12 month period from mid 2014 to mid 2015. Here are a couple articles talking not only about the momentum but also some proposed projects that are not signing on new tenants or vacating tenants in preps for some level of conversion (hotel/office, office to hotel, office to residential, office/residential...etc.).  

 

April 2015

https://www.bisnow.com/dallas-ft-worth/news/office/top-10-reasons-downtown-dallas-will-succeed-44475

 

Report of Dallas leading the country in dropping vacant office rates in 2013

http://bizbeatblog.dallasnews.com/2013/09/dallas-area-tops-the-country-in-office-vacancy-declines.html/?nclick_check=1

 

2014 article - Why Investors are flocking to DTD

http://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-ceo/2014/september/why-investors-are-flocking-to-downtown-dallas

 

Specific to DTD an article from 2014.  By third quarter of 2014 1.75 million square feet had been absorbed and absorption continued through 2015 while rental rates rose.

http://www.dallasnews.com/business/commercial-real-estate/20140928-downtown-dallas-tops-area-office-leasing-so-far-in-2014.ece

 

Snapshot of 2015

http://bizbeatblog.dallasnews.com/tag/dallas-office-market/

Edited February 18, 2016 by slfunk