Dallas's Skyline - What Could Have Been

[Rosewood]

Moments before the one/two punch of the 1985 Oil Crash and the 1986 Tax Law Package the Democrats in Congress enacted that eliminated unoccupied real estate as a tax shelter, this would have been Dallas. The twin towers to Interfirst Bank and Fountain Place would have been built.

[Dominax]

This city would look more advance with those buildings.

Did u create this yourself

but i know this was the full length to the Dallas Skyline of the two missing buildings

if so u should make more like these will all the buildings showing.

Its a great picture I had hard time finding one like this

I made the full length skyline for Houston as well with its missing buildings.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v707/dom...tonDowntown.bmp

[Talbot]

Back then they may have looked good together, but seeing them now, I don't know if they would be too accepted.

[WestGrayGuy]

Architecture "grows" on people over time. For example, the Transamerica pyramid was hated when it was first built in San Francisco, now it is a symbol of the city. Also, the World Trade Center in NYC was also poorly received when built. Now some talk of rebuilding them as they were.

[Dallasboi]

The second bank of america tower was to have Gold Tinted glass panels..That would have been cool!!!

[nmainguy]

I am a firm believer in blaming Democrats for virtually everything that ever went wrong ever. How dare they stop the erection of a hidious companion building to an already hideous structure [Fountain Place].

How dare they take away billions in tax shelters for people of The Donald's and Harold Farb's ilk!

DAMN the Democrats, I say!!!

DAMN THEM!!!

[westguy]

Those buildings (or some of the surrounding ones) would be completely vacant if they were around today. Better that they weren't around to depress an already dismal downtown.

[Dallasboi]

Those buildings (or some of the surrounding ones) would be completely vacant if they were around today. Better that they weren't around to depress an already dismal downtown.

[/q

Both of those buildings are class AA Buildings.And I don't recall any of our class AA buildings ever falling under 90% leased.So if they were built trust me they would be occupied.Only older buildings in DTD fall vacant.Same with Houston. :closedeyes:

[713 To 214]

DT Dallas has made huge gains in its CBD, in terms of new leases, extension of existing ones, and new class AA Office Space altogether. I will post supporting info. a little later to dispell yet another misleading assertion by some HAIF posters about Dallas.

[RedScare]

DT Dallas has made huge gains in its CBD, in terms of new leases, extension of existing ones, and new class AA Office Space altogether. I will post supporting info. a little later to dispell yet another misleading assertion by some HAIF posters about Dallas.

Better send that supporting info to the Dallas Federal Reserve, because they apparently bought into the myth as well.

http://www.dallasfed.org/research/swe/2005/swe0502a.html

"The national recession that began in March 2001, along with the high-tech bust and catastrophic events of 9/11, took a toll on the Texas economy, however. The downturn hit harder and lasted longer in Texas than elsewhere in the country. As firms downsized, office vacancies in Texas markets climbed quickly and rents began falling.

How do Texas office markets stack up currently? At just over 24 percent vacancy, Dallas tops the list of U.S. cities with the highest office vacancy rates. With a vacancy rate near 20 percent, Austin

[713 To 214]

Better send that supporting info to the Dallas Federal Reserve, because they apparently bought into the myth as well.

http://www.dallasfed.org/research/swe/2005/swe0502a.html

I like your researching skills, and desire to provide data supporting your point . . . We need more of that on this site, though.

Now, that Fed report discusses the DT Dallas vacancy rate from March 2001 - Fourth Quarter 2004. It further analyzes vacancy rates in comparison to periods dating back to 1990. I don't dispute this data at all.

Many of the gains I mentioned earlier were acquired since the most recent update of that report (April 2005). I should have stated "DT Dallas has recently made huge gains in its CBD. . ." This is yet another example of the power of words. Leaving out one word can change the entire meaning of something.

Anyway, data is coming shortly.

[RedScare]

My bad. The US leading 24% vacancy rate is for the ENTIRE Dallas area. Grubbs-Ellis' Third Quarter 2005 report states that the Dallas CBD vacancy rate is 26.7%!

Fort Worth is doing nicely, though.

(All Classes) Total SF(1) Vacant SF(4) Vacant % Current Qtr. Year-to-date Construction(2) Class A Class B

Dallas CBD 28,357,176 7,576,006 26.7% 94,730 (177,767) 647,000 $20.89 $16.41

Fort Worth CBD 7,237,538 509,145 7.0% 95,598 356,795 - $26.08 $16.53

CBD Total 35,594,714 8,085,151 22.7% 190,328 179,028 647,000 $21.61 $16.43

[Dallasboi]

My bad. The US leading 24% vacancy rate is for the ENTIRE Dallas area. Grubbs-Ellis' Third Quarter 2005 report states that the Dallas CBD vacancy rate is 26.7%!

Fort Worth is doing nicely, though.

(All Classes) Total SF(1) Vacant SF(4) Vacant % Current Qtr. Year-to-date Construction(2) Class A Class B

Dallas CBD 28,357,176 7,576,006 26.7% 94,730 (177,767) 647,000 $20.89 $16.41

Fort Worth CBD 7,237,538 509,145 7.0% 95,598 356,795 - $26.08 $16.53

CBD Total 35,594,714 8,085,151 22.7% 190,328 179,028 647,000 $21.61 $16.43

Ft.Worth will forever do well.Hell if Dallas only had 2or3 14 storybuildings to fill to count as an entire CBD then hell we too would be 100% Leased. No hard feelings Ft. Worth ...just making a point.

[RedScare]

Ft.Worth will forever do well.Hell if Dallas only had 2or3 14 storybuildings to fill to count as an entire CBD then hell we too would be 100% Leased. No hard feelings Ft. Worth ...just making a point.

Overbuilding your CBD to the point of having numerous empty shells begging for conversion to residential is hardly something to brag about. As a former Fort Worthian myself, I am damn proud that Ft. Worth developers are intelligent enough not to put up buildings when no market exists to fill them.

Maybe that is why Fort Worth has the most beautiful and vibrant downtown in all of Texas.

[TexasStar]

Overbuilding your CBD to the point of having numerous empty shells begging for conversion to residential is hardly something to brag about. As a former Fort Worthian myself, I am damn proud that Ft. Worth developers are intelligent enough not to put up buildings when no market exists to fill them.

Maybe that is why Fort Worth has the most beautiful and vibrant downtown in all of Texas.

With all the exciting projects breaking out all over downtown Dallas we just have a lot to brag and be excited about. Obviously, so does Ft.Worth. So what exactly is your point, except to start some senseless conflict?

[Dallasite]

I would have liked either or....but not both sets of twins...

[slfunk]

Overbuilding your CBD to the point of having numerous empty shells begging for conversion to residential is hardly something to brag about. As a former Fort Worthian myself, I am damn proud that Ft. Worth developers are intelligent enough not to put up buildings when no market exists to fill them.

Maybe that is why Fort Worth has the most beautiful and vibrant downtown in all of Texas.

Redscare...this is just informative. But what a bunch of people tend to side step when talking about the downtown Dallas market is the Savings & Loans scandal that hit Dallas in the 1980's. This ended with banks closing up shop, office buildings being emptied out and people fleaing to the northern part. We here it from real estate anaylst who talk about about how much office vacancy we have. I don't deny that developers over built, this is something that happens in every city. Atlanta still practices "build it and they will come" approach. But what needs to be kept in mind is the S&L scandal and how that played out. That effected the vacancy much more then being overbuilt. If the S&L thing never happened we would not be talking empty building being renovated so much as new buildings being built. This is why when you go to downtown Dallas you will see many parking lots. For example, the Well's Fargo building pictured in this picture was never built because the second tower was to come online right at the height of these scandals and downtown Dallas being bordered up shops closing down on Main Street. There use to be some wonderful buildings on that site, but were torn down to make way for the second tower. The same thing holds true for the Bank of America tower. The older buildings like the Mercantile, 501 Akard, Petroleum complex etc. were abandoned and left behind buildings that were hard to be made ready for the demands of new office tenants. Today they would be at best renovated into a Class B office building (which holds little profit when looking at the EPA permits, demolition, asbestos, new finishes etc. etc.) or they could be renovated into residential buildings where you have more of a chance to remove the asbestos and do limited work to make it habital for tenants because residential projects do not demand as many services as an office building. This is all part of the life cycle of a building.

[Gary]

Dallas, the greatest city in the history of the world!

[RedScare]

Redscare...this is just informative. But what a bunch of people tend to side step when talking about the downtown Dallas market is the Savings & Loans scandal that hit Dallas in the 1980's.

Gee, slfunk, thanks for the informative post. I had always been under the impression that the S&L scandal was a nationwide scandal, not just Downtown Dallas. I was under the mistaken impression that Charles Keating was from Irvine, CA, Neil Bush in Denver, and the rest spread across the US. No wonder Ft. Worth's vacancy rate is one fourth of Dallas'. The S&L scandal wasn't in their city.

Houston should feel lucky to have escaped the S&L crisis, too. It only had the oil bust and TWO real estate busts to deal with. If the S&L crisis had hit Houston as well, it probably would have disappeared from the map...or at least shrunk to the size of Waco.

I am also relieved to know that Dallas developers had nothing to do with the CDB's unfortunate vacancy problem. I am sure none of the beautiful edifices of the Dallas skyline were financed with S&L money, and none of the developers were friends with the S&L owners, who no doubt were out-of-towners, probably from New York.

It is truly unfortunate that the S&L crisis keeps coming back to bite Dallas, such as in the late 90s, when the CBD vacancy rate soared to nearly 40%. It is enough to make one cry out, "How long must this go on!"

Thanks again for the info. To show my gratitude, I will root for the Cowboys this weekend.

[slfunk]

Redscare.... I am not saying it was isolated to Dallas, but what I am saying is that is the reason for there being so many empty buildings downtown. Downtown Dallas was hit exceptionally hard...thats all. It sparked many developers to look north to develop and that trend has continued to today. The city for the past few years has stepped up to the plate to get developers to look downtown through tax incentives. Don't take my words and twist them around.

[Dallasboi]

Overbuilding your CBD to the point of having numerous empty shells begging for conversion to residential is hardly something to brag about. As a former Fort Worthian myself, I am damn proud that Ft. Worth developers are intelligent enough not to put up buildings when no market exists to fill them.

Maybe that is why Fort Worth has the most beautiful and vibrant downtown in all of Texas.

Who are you kidding? Uptown Dallas Blows DTFW to El Paso.

"Sundance Square" vs "West Village"............West Village.

? vs 'Mockingbird Station..........Mockingbird station

? vs "Knox Henderson......Knox

? vs "Oaklawn Cedar Springs"...............Oaklawn

Looks like Ft.Worth comes up short...Which is not good for the "Bestest" cityin Tx.

[nmainguy]

Redscare.... I am not saying it was isolated to Dallas, but what I am saying is that is the reason for there being so many empty buildings downtown. Downtown Dallas was hit exceptionally hard...thats all. It sparked many developers to look north to develop and that trend has continued to today. The city for the past few years has stepped up to the plate to get developers to look downtown through tax incentives. Don't take my words and twist them around.

As the creator of this thread stated in the very first post:

Moments before the one/two punch of the 1985 Oil Crash and the 1986 Tax Law Package the Democrats in Congress enacted that eliminated unoccupied real estate as a tax shelter, this would have been Dallas. The twin towers to Interfirst Bank and Fountain Place would have been built.

Most of this statement is true. However, as we all know, nothing was passed without the consent of Democrats and Republicans in Congress and the signature of Ronald Reagan.

So blame it on the Democrats.

Blame it on the S&L nationwide collapse.

Hell, blame it on Reagan.

All 3 are bogus excuses, IMO.

[WesternGulf]

Who are you kidding? Uptown Dallas Blows DTFW to El Paso.

"Sundance Square" vs "West Village"............West Village.

? vs 'Mockingbird Station..........Mockingbird station

? vs "Knox Henderson......Knox

? vs "Oaklawn Cedar Springs"...............Oaklawn

Looks like Ft.Worth comes up short...Which is not good for the "Bestest" cityin Tx.

DOWNTOWN

[nmainguy]

Who are you kidding? Uptown Dallas Blows DTFW to El Paso.

"Sundance Square" vs "West Village"............West Village.

? vs 'Mockingbird Station..........Mockingbird station

? vs "Knox Henderson......Knox

? vs "Oaklawn Cedar Springs"...............Oaklawn

Looks like Ft.Worth comes up short...Which is not good for the "Bestest" cityin Tx.

YIKES!

This is turning out to be nastier than usual in these Dallas vs. Houston threads.

Me thinks more threads about Houston architecture on the HOUSTON Architectural Info Forum would be more appropriate instead of sitting around arguing who has the bigger package .

[tamtagon]

Hrumph?!?! It's like the Prairie fires had corresponding HAIF fires. I never would have thought this group was so tuned to the environment.

[Gary]

Gee, slfunk, thanks for the informative post. I had always been under the impression that the S&L scandal was a nationwide scandal, not just Downtown Dallas. I was under the mistaken impression that Charles Keating was from Irvine, CA, Neil Bush in Denver, and the rest spread across the US. No wonder Ft. Worth's vacancy rate is one fourth of Dallas'. The S&L scandal wasn't in their city.

Houston should feel lucky to have escaped the S&L crisis, too. It only had the oil bust and TWO real estate busts to deal with. If the S&L crisis had hit Houston as well, it probably would have disappeared from the map...or at least shrunk to the size of Waco.

I am also relieved to know that Dallas developers had nothing to do with the CDB's unfortunate vacancy problem. I am sure none of the beautiful edifices of the Dallas skyline were financed with S&L money, and none of the developers were friends with the S&L owners, who no doubt were out-of-towners, probably from New York.

It is truly unfortunate that the S&L crisis keeps coming back to bite Dallas, such as in the late 90s, when the CBD vacancy rate soared to nearly 40%. It is enough to make one cry out, "How long must this go on!"

Thanks again for the info. To show my gratitude, I will root for the Cowboys this weekend.

Do I detect a little sarcasm Red? Great post.

[editor]

YIKES!

This is turning out to be nastier than usual in these Dallas vs. Houston threads.

Me thinks more threads about Houston architecture on the HOUSTON Architectural Info Forum would be more appropriate instead of sitting around arguing who has the bigger package .

Please remember this is the DALLAS section of the forum. A certain level of Dallas jingoism is acceptable, just as a certaiin level of Houston boosterism is acceptable in other parts of HAIF.

But the bottom line is written at the top of your screen:

Respectful discussions only. My-city-is-better-than-your-city flame wars are not permitted on HAIF. "He started it" is not a valid excuse. Both parties in a flame war may have their accounts suspended or terminated. Just walk away. Flames will be deleted without notice. Please report violations to a member of the moderating team, or to the Editor.