Dallas Development is a Strange Dichotomy of Tall Buildings Built in All The Wrong Places

Last week I was sickened to read about Spectrum Properties’ plans for the North Texas Food Bank headquarters bound by Pearl Expressway, Cesar Chavez Blvd., and Farmers Road in the Farmer’s Market area of downtown Dallas.

Not because the Food Bank will be displaced – it won’t. But because Spectrum, who purchased the land from the Food Bank in October 2020, plans to build a six-story building comprising four stories of apartments atop a newly-built Food Bank HQ and 125 aboveground parking spaces. The third floor will also house a community center and pool. 

And that’s all fine – but I do not think such a suburban-sized development really belongs in the urban core of Dallas – land that is almost completely zoned for “high as you want” construction.

In fact, I have an easy test.  If a building looks at home off of Interstate 20 in Duncanville, it doesn’t belong in downtown Dallas.

The Spectrum deal is far from alone.

In March, Serra Real Estate Capital announced plans to build a 1,200-space, above ground, by-right parking garage downtown on an acre near the Omni Hotel and the County Courthouse. To not completely blight the streetscape, the $61.7 million project will have retail on the ground level.

Again, how is land in downtown Dallas so cheap that this is financially viable? Blame City Hall.

Then there’s the older tale of land off Mockingbird Lane between The Highland Hotel and condos and Glencoe Park.  For years a developer tried to get City Hall support for a high-rise on the parcel.  Despite it being highly undesirable (next to Central Expressway) but spitting distance to Mockingbird Station, residents of the neighboring Highland House succeeded in killing it. This despite City Hall crowing about Transit Oriented Development being a goal to improve public transit use – one high-rise was allowed to kill another because of view infringement – something the city claims is never a consideration.

Hillwood’s shrinking dreams on display.

On the flipside, this month Hillwood Urban announced Field Street Tower, a new office building to be located at Woodall Rodgers and Field Street – near two other major announced projects. The 600-foot tower was touted by the Dallas Morning News as being “tallest Dallas skyscraper in three decades”. And while it’s a seemingly handsome set of buildings (I’m just praying the short building isn’t a parking garage), let’s look at how thrilling that claim really is.

At 600 feet, it will be the 12th tallest building in Dallas, beating the current position holder, Republic Center Tower II, by two feet. It will beat nearby Museum Tower by 40 feet but have fewer overall floors (38 versus Museum Towers’ 42). And as for the record books, it will still be 321 feet shorter than Dallas’ tallest building, Bank of America Plaza – still the record holder since 1985. That’s embarrassing.

Now let’s go back in time to 2017 when Hillwood was trumpeting zoning that would allow unlimited height and 1.5 million square feet to be built on this very site. Their Renzo Piano-designed skyscraper was dubbed Perot Tower and called a gateway to downtown. Four years have turned that gateway into a veritable doggy door by comparison.

As I said, a seemingly fine complex of buildings, but not the stuff of my (nor Hillwood’s original) dreams. Now if it was all reasonably-priced residential or if they’d decide to add 322 feet of residential on top to take the rusted “tallest” crown, I’d be impressed.

While this by-right project has nothing to do per se with City Hall, it does show one of Dallas’ better developers pulling back. It highlights my thesis that while metro Dallas is growing, downtown can’t absorb a “tallest” building – and that is certainly in part due to Dallas City Hall’s inability to bring development downtown.

Why, why, why?

Why haven’t we seen 20-story apartment buildings in Farmer’s Market similar to the dozen-plus currently approved for Uptown and Oak Lawn? Why haven’t we seen a new “tallest building in Dallas” in 36 years? Why are the highest density residential areas of the city, largely ignored by DART, the same ones being ruined by oversize development? Residentially, why does downtown only get either rich-people high-rises bordering the Arts District or low-density suburban sprawl in Farmer’s Market?

Why is land so cheap that a parking garage and six-story apartment building are economically viable to build in the first place? Could it be because the Dallas City Plan Commission and Dallas City Council allow high-rises to be built anywhere they don’t belong – and in doing so diminish interest and value in downtown? Could it be that City Hall is more easily convinced by peer pressure to approve than good urban planning?

High-density housing is a zero-sum game. Only so much will be built. So when City Hall approves it anywhere, it clearly won’t go where any urban planner would tell you it belongs.

Cases in point. Streetlights Residential’s planned high-rise at Lemmon and Oak Lawn, Pegasus-Ablon’s two 20-story high-rises on Dickason off Cedar Springs, Nazerian’s Exxir Capital’s marketing of its Carlisle on the Katy Trail apartment building for high-rises (now that Lincoln Katy Trail has been approved), and four low-rises across from Cole Park being marketed for 20-story high-rises.

Each of these projects has either been willingly approved by City Hall or is currently for sale. But there was one that I’d say got by on a technicality – that City Hall has never fixed. 

The Unclosed Loophole

In early 2020 I highlighted the mind-bogglingly legal high-rise being built on Irving Avenue in the back of the Kinkos/FedEx Office on Oak Lawn Avenue. It came into being largely because replats are unquestionable by the Plan Commission. They can ask no questions about reasons for the replat, demand to see plans, and are even barred/discouraged from driving by subject properties — a situation unheard of in surrounding municipalities. So when this project came to light, it was after the replat had been approved.  

Considering what I would call an egregious use of a loophole, you’d think the city would close the loop so they weren’t so blindsided again.

Nope.

To this day, replats are largely voted on blindly with only the information the applicant chooses to share. My suggestion to multiple Plan Commissioners has been to refuse to vote on replat cases until the rules change – but get it on the record, “I will not vote where I am prevented from understanding the goals of the applicant.”  If enough Plan Commissioners said that often enough to block replats, I’m pretty sure the situation would change very quickly.

Here is what it looks like to me: No guts.

Overall, Dallas, City Hall’s elected and appointed officials are not urban planners and unfortunately, the vast majority don’t even pretend to be. They’re more like an I Dream of Jeannie rerun whereby Tony Nelson finds a yacht in his living room in the blink of an eye.