Uptown Dallas: M Line Tower (240 FT / 20 ST)

[flyswatter]

Blue Sushi's website says they open on Halloween. Got a $10 off coupon in the mail from them and walked by yesterday and the interior looks fantastic. Cafe Express still has some work to be done inside before it opens it looked like.

[Redblock]

The Cafe Express and a nail salon soon to open in this building set up tables on the sidewalk today to hand out ads and coffee samples.


The Cafe Express people said they will open in mid-December.

[R1070]

Nice to see a nail salon going in as well. I always thought it was just going to be the two restaurants. It's funny how many nail salons are in Oak Lawn compared to other areas of Dallas. People in Da Lawn love to get them nails did.

[cowboyeagle05]

I think its more of a matter of who is being selective in their leasing arrangements. Depending on the owner/leasing team for these retail spaces they only allow the type of businesses that they think will make the property look attractive to residential tenants and the entire property bottom line. I believe there is a deluge of underutilized retail space along Oak Lawn and Lemmon with property owners who are willing to fill with whatever will pay the advertised price.

The residential buildings in Uptown seem to prefer the signature restaurant/bar type of retail tenants over a generic neighborhood service businesses. Only when they have a significantly larger ground floor retail space do they seem to allow neighborhood service. Look at the Ilume at Cedar Springs and Wycliff. They have Cedar Springs Tap House, AI Sushi, Hair Salon, Taco Y Mas, Dry Cleaners, Nail Salon and one more empty restaurant space. Uptown residential buildings like having a fashionable restaurant in-house over just another nail salon, insurance agent, dry cleaners etc despite the reality is that those neighborhood service businesses are an amenity in many tenants minds.

[joshua.dodd]

[joshua.dodd]

I really like that they used brick for the tower's facade and not stucco.

[DPatel304]

Thanks for the picture updates!

[CTroyMathis]

A couple of photos of the track extension going into the building:





https://twitter.com/CTroyMathis/status/ ... 4150165506

[tamtagon]

oh that new track red, delightful.

[joshua.dodd]

I noticed a sign out front of M-Line Tower that says the first 8 weeks are rent free. Is this just a gimmick to attract tenets or could it be a sign of a slowdown in the market?

[flyswatter]

Might answer your question:

https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2017/11/there-sure-are-a-lot-of-specials-on-uptowns-expensive-apartment-stock/

[The_Overdog]

Might answer your question:
I really hate articles like that. I think Jon Anderson is a generally fine writer, so this is light criticism, but the crux of the article is "they are building too many buildings where the rent is too high---building is slowing down" while Jon also writes endless articles about how the various downtown areas should reject buildings that don't fit his criteria which generally make buildings more expensive (larger (suburban) setbacks, larger units, more bedrooms, fancier architecture) and then in the article itself points to discounts in rent (in the month of the December- the slowest housing month) and those somehow point to slowdowns in construction in DFW in general. There is no way for builders (or anyone) to win with articles like this. I guess in Jon's mind, build too much and offer discounts is a problem and build too few (the difference between too few and too many is 1) is a problem but there is no construction Goldilocks stirring the pot and endlessly determining what 'just right' is.

Nevermind that some other regular at Candys Dirt.com (his home turf) wrote the same article last year (I think this year had record numbers of units constructed so ooops to that person). Eventually one will be correct. You must get some kind of journalism prize if you correctly call the top of the market. Or something.

[tamtagon]

Whether or not residential construction along the McKinney Avenue spine dips for a couple years or not, the long term price will not. The real timing wild card for McKinney Ave is when Oak Lawn strip shopping center begin converting into these retail/commercial pedestals with residential and/or office towers. From the fountain in the street next to Eugenia Jones' house to Blackburn, the Churches will about the only things to remain, everything else will be scraped off, dug down and rebuilt into generally more expensive space than we're seeing today.

[joshua.dodd]

Time will tell. But it really does seem like a slowdown to me.

[tamtagon]

^Sorry, to be clear, LoMac will to slow with new, expensive digs during the time East Dallas and Oak Lawn inventory increases substantially. As redevelopment in East Dallas and Oak Lawn start to create the pockets of more expensive developments, then LoMac will experience a resurgence.