Oak Lawn Committee Sees Changes For Knight Street And Night Sky

Sexy rendering, right?  The Oak Lawn Committee saw two presentations last night. Let’s get the quickie out of the way to give us plenty of time breaking down this beauty.

Back in September, the Oak Lawn Committee saw a proposal by the owners of a vintage single-family home at Knight Street and Rawlins wanting to upzone their property to Office-2 (O-2) – an enormous jump in zoning category from their existing Multi-Family-2 (MF-2). It was a ludicrous jump seemingly arrived at after consulting with the Oak Lawn Committee behind the scenes. The reason seemed to be because the house wasn’t selling at the price the long-time owners wanted.

Anyway, they were back with the request they should have had in the first place. Retain MF-2 zoning with an allowance for an office to occupy the house in full or in part (live-work). Think of the old homes turned offices over by the Quadrangle. When someone tears down the house (and they will), it reverts to straight MF-2 zoning suitable for a trio of townhouses seen elsewhere in the area. Done.

 The Good Stuff: North End

I recently ragged on bad architecture blocking resident’s view of better architecture. Here we have a long-term project presented by Hunt Realty, KPF Architects and Hoerr Schaudt landscaping that will block some views with as-good-as architecture. One thing it doesn’t is take the “tallest” crown from the Bank of America building – it’s 32 feet short of breaking the 35-year, 921-foot record. Come on guys!

Anyway, you want to know where there’s 11-acres in the city. Just north of the Perot Museum and directly across Houston Street from the W Hotel and Residences – currently the Northend Apartments (green on map). For those DART fans, it’s also adjacent to the proposed Museum stop for the D2 underground line (the yellow “finger” on the map)

I’m thrilled it’s located in PD-193 and within Oak Lawn Committee jurisdiction – I shudder to think what it would look like in Victory Park. As it is, this long-term mixed-use project will help knit the dead zones of Victory with the rest of Uptown and downtown. But there is one hold-over from Victory – there’s a lot of aboveground parking. Of the four buildings, only one (the smallest) has all underground parking. The others are a mix of nine and eleven above and just three stories below. 

Removing the glitz, we can see better.  There are essentially four main buildings here. The smallest in the right-foreground you’ll read about later, but it’s worth noting here, the only issue I have with it is the podium that extends southward. It’s such a nice building, why put it on a stilt? The podium’s removal would also create a larger opening to the central green space.

1.5 Acres But Too Much Aboveground Parking

The central green space is 1.5 acres of continuous ahhhh the city needs more of. That central green space does a few things well.  First, it allows the remaining high-rises a central hub to their spokes. It creates the effect of stadium seating to the downtown skyline. It also offers office workers and residents a place to play – something we’re all too aware of these days. From the city, it also hides Victory from view.

The blue end buildings are office with the center pair being mixed use residential, hotel and retail/restaurant (maybe Mandarin Oriental will finally land here?). The gray?  That’s all the aboveground parking. I’m sorry, but a project of this caliber and size should see A LOT more underground parking than above, not two-to-one above.

Got Wood?

That smallest building is this 85-foot wooden “ply-rise” – the only one with all-underground parking.  It’s only 85-feet high because Dallas building codes haven’t caught up with high-tech wood construction as other cities have. In addition to all the wood used in construction, it’s also loaded with greenery on balconies and rooftops. On its inner courtyard, it’s connected directly to the central green space – no road.

My only wish here is that the wood building was the tallest one, not the shortest. I like to see daring engineering and renewables get their dues.

Hills and Trees

The central park space will also be mixed-use of a sort. There will be a forest (above) and a lawn space plus walkways. They will be able to program the park with special events and an access road on one side might see food trucks similar to Klyde Warren.  I like that it’s all not flat space. I like that the trees are a bit more mature than we typically see. I specifically asked the team if these were the views our grandchildren would enjoy once the 1-inch diameter trees grew. No, while they’re not able to transplant 100-year-old trees, they will be using a mixture of more mature trees along with some smaller ones.

Pop-up, Eat-up

At the outer edge of the green space there will be a couple of single-story restaurant spaces (facing the Perot Museum). These will be just as wonderful as the restaurants that line Klyde Warren and given its proximity, attract the same diners. I already walk by the existing apartments, so I know I’ll be here a lot.

One new OLC member asked about Victory’s scooter problem – whenever there’s an event hundreds scooter in and then Uber out, leaving hundreds of scooters littering the area. It was pointed out that while the park is open to the public, the land is private and so the scooters will be kept out by private patrols, not the city.

What Do They Want?

Seen from the back, the building layout creates a view alley towards downtown with the Perot in the corner. It also reminds me a bit of a mini Central Park that’s surrounded by taller buildings (the Woodie is on the left side).

The asks for such a site are surprisingly minimal. The land is currently zoned for MF-3 – high-rise residential with a 4:1 floor area ratio (FAR). They already have unlimited height. They’re asking for FAR to double to 8:1 and for mixed use to be allowed instead of all-residential. They also want to up the lot coverage from 60 percent to 75 percent.

Usually I’m prickly about lot coverage, but in this case, I’m OK. First, it’s an 11-acre site, so even with higher lot coverage, it’s still a lot of contiguous open space. Second, the current apartments are inwardly-facing with no public access and no large green space. This project opens up land to the public that it hasn’t stepped on in decades.

There are affordable housing questions to be answered with the city. Unlike some other cases that minimized their contributions because they added residential to lots not formerly residential, this is a complete residential replacement project. Maybe include wording that requires the project to follow the city statute in place when they build?

Finally, there’s the question of timing. This project is expected to be built over a period of 10-20 years as Dallas can absorb its various components. Questions remain on the cadence of construction and what the plot looks like in the interim, no one believes this will look like a dust-filled hole for that long. There will be something on the slumbering land – pop-up restaurants, larger lawn space … some combination?

I have one question for the city. Granting zoning today for projects a decade or more into the future can’t be forgotten when other nearby zoning cases come in the meantime. How do you keep track of this “ghost zoning” when evaluating newer requests before build-out is complete?