Dallas Fort Worth Urban Forum

The spot where the second tower would go is just a grass lot.

tamtagon wrote:I hope the second tower gets built, either as residential or as hotel, but I don't want the pedestal to sit empty for a generation or two as an afterthought of what could have been.

True. The entire East side of Downtown Dallas has sat empty for a number of generations as the weeds grew in the cracks of the many unused concrete & asphalt parking lots that were once occupied by many buildings & businesses of earlier generations. I think it sadly remains a major scar in Dallas, along with the horror of the same situation on Downtown's Southern flank. Perhaps a few of the proposed developments will eventually get off the ground and remedy this sad situation in the future.

R1070 wrote:The spot where the second tower would go is just a grass lot.

It may be a grassy lot but its a fairly ugly one with the barren end of the parking garage exposed. Either build something or enclose the garage properly like you did the rest of the garage. I would rather see the proposed tower but I will even accept a small retail block on that land if the demand is there for more retail space on the ground floor.

I've been wanting to put a sign on the lone door of the exposed parking garage facing Olive and the grassy lot that says "Door to Narnia". Maybe it'd be better putting it on the inside, but, whatev. Also, there's quite a fair amount of misc. construction debris not too deep under the soil dumped on that grassy lot as well as some seemingly hastily laid thin irrigation piping. The exposed garage on the San Jacinto side still has the burn marks from a fire, what, like around 2 years ago?

For some perspective:

Gaining some height

Peeking through

The glass curtain wall is going up on the west side. Wasn't what I was expecting but need to go back and look at the rendering.

Yeah, doesn't look like the rendering, which appeared to be similar to the garage but this looks just like a sheet of grey glass. Only two floors done so far.

Progress on the JW Marriott tower is moving along as the glass façade is being added to the lower floors. It looks like the tower has a few more floors to go before it tops out.

^Great pics, thanks for posting!

Is the hotel making use of the top floor of the garage, e.g. for a pool?

Great addition to the Dallas Skyline!

Urbancowboy wrote:Great addition to the Dallas Skyline!

Yes, but in a subtle and hidden way. I like that it's kind of a hidden gem popping up within all of the other buildings around it.

dallaz wrote:I don’t think these renderings have been posted.

https://www.sammoongroup.com/jw-marriott-dallas

5177FBAA-5CD7-4121-9413-0BAAB563FE0B.jpegFA976E8D-401A-46A4-A242-576AFBCAA9D5.jpeg800BCBD0-1C3A-43F5-ADCB-D61E28D1837B.jpeg5164B3CD-0603-410E-86E5-4078F2E598A8.jpeg

Looks like the facade will be some of both.

^I just noticed that rendering of the JW on the SAM MOON website has the mythical residential tower developed. If only the things in renderings had any truth to them at all. What developers learned from kids books is to always protect the fantasy cause the truth isn't what people want. Fairy tales with princes on a white horse and a happy ending for the princess is the mantra of development renderings.

^ Many didn't expect the hotel to be built either...

^And I await to be proven wrong and I have been plenty of times in my life but one thing you can depend on is developers to promise the world and produce what equates to a grain of sand in actual results.

cowboyeagle05 wrote:^And I await to be proven wrong and I have been plenty of times in my life but one thing you can depend on is developers to promise the world and produce what equates to a grain of sand in actual results.

I agree with you about 98% of the time. Developers are looking for investors to fund their projects, so they make it sound like the next best thing to the Taj Mahal, LOL.

BTW, I have heard rumblings that the Hunt project is far from dormant. Some chatter has it that it will be moving forward in 2022. Again, this is only the buzz.

rono3849 wrote:BTW, I have heard rumblings that the Hunt project is far from dormant. Some chatter has it that it will be moving forward in 2022. Again, this is only the buzz.

I'm not really basing this on much, but I'm feeling optimistic that 2022 will be a great year for Urban Dallas.

I know a lot of friends and family that live outside of Texas that are interested in moving to Dallas. And this is just among my circle of friends and families. Imagine all the other people out there. Good word of mouth spreads so Dallas real estate is continuing to be hot and will stay hot for the time being.

Even if the Fed rate hikes has a deflationary effect on housing, Dallas demand is so high I don't think you'll see an impact from it for years

I like the translucent glass over the garage. It almost makes up for the fact that so many buildings around there seem to be mostly for storing cars.

Looks like Marriott topped out.

From last Saturday:



https://twitter.com/CTroyMathis/status/ ... 3155983364

The otherside of the garage is so hideous. The building's asshole just exposed to the world.

^^ Hopefully not for too much longer!

Trammel Crow Center (2001 Ross) sold recently for north of $600 million, and I believe the sale included 2000 Ross. Hopefully a new developer will push forward on the green space and cover up the building's "asshole" lol.

Also including a pic from end of February I forgot to post, showing a part of the JW you might not see from the ground.

[img][/img]

Tivo_Kenevil wrote:The otherside of the garage is so hideous. The building's asshole just exposed to the world.

It's a gaping for sure

st0760 wrote:Trammel Crow Center (2001 Ross) sold recently for north of $600 million, and I believe the sale included 2000 Ross. Hopefully a new developer will push forward on the green space and cover up the building's "asshole" lol.

Also including a pic from end of February I forgot to post, showing a part of the JW you might not see from the ground.

[img]IMG_3328.jpeg[/img]

I hadn't heard anything in regards to 2000 Ross (this) being included in the sale of TCC... If so, that's pretty crazy. May have missed that in the articles about the sale, but hmm... Digging required indeed.

MC_ScattCat wrote:

Tivo_Kenevil wrote:The otherside of the garage is so hideous. The building's asshole just exposed to the world.

It's a gaping for sure

LMFAO

They will probably just cover it with a giant ad space of some sort with a JW marketing piece. If we are lucky they might do an art piece may be even LED screening of some sort to get by. I just don't see any real building there or a full enclosure of that side until the next economic boom which could be years away. Rent is high for residential rentals along with demand but still lots of slow starts in the city compared with the far northern burbs where they can throw up thousands of units for cheap and rake in the same overpriced rent. That's, not a traditional residential rental market on that side of Downtown and no one has shown a lot of interest in changing that fact.

Portman has announced those two residential towers just down Ross at the old Spire site. Ross is drawing interest and capital, so I wouldn’t rule this tower out yet.

Does anyone know how well the Atelier is leasing up? That might indicate the viability of the market.

Announced is right just like this tower was announced years ago with better renderings and look where we are. Announced and turning the soil with lots of heavy machinery are two very different things and I do not see any evidence that the Portman project will ever reach past renderings as well.

A preliminary plat for the property bounded by Ross/Routh/San Jacinto/Leonard, minus the AT&T property at the corner of Leonard and Ross was submitted to the City. That's something at least.

I'm not suggesting a residential aspect on the Olive side is coming any time soon at 2000 Ross, but, at least some solace can be found that it can't exactly start at the moment the way they have that side set up and they aren't going to use the crane on Harwood. All the space (w/exception to the Narnia door down to where the mural is) is taken up with construction ancillaries. I do wonder randomly, since they've relied on that side for phase one and two, where the staging would be for a phase 3 (res). I suppose San Jacinto side is the most reasonable choice for a lane closure for extras and if it's a crane on the side instead of interior.

BTW, here's some details on the sale of the 2001 & 2000 Ross (but, not the JW) : https://rebusinessonline.com/regent-pro ... over-600m/

So, who owns the JW? Sam Moon Group? Also, if I'm extrapolating correctly, I guess the site for a potential phase three is included in the sale.

Oh, and the San Jacinto side will definitely always be the side that likely won't ever get covered, haha. And, it still has a nice burn mark too.

cowboyeagle05 wrote:Announced is right just like this tower was announced years ago with better renderings and look where we are. Announced and turning the soil with lots of heavy machinery are two very different things and I do not see any evidence that the Portman project will ever reach past renderings as well.

Portman has a lot of projects under construction all over the country? Why would they come all the way from Atlanta and spend $20M on a site just to sit on it? It’s a great site if you are going to build a gateway project, but nothing is great about it as a speculative play. I think they came here to build. https://www.dallasnews.com/business/rea ... as-towers/

At 2000 Ross, Sam Moon does mostly hotel properties, and the linked article by CTroyMathis above says the residential site was included in the package sold to investors. So there’s room to doubt that anything will happen soon on that one. But strong leasing at the Atelier would help build a case here. I wonder how they are doing.

dalbert wrote:JW.jpg

Awesome, looks great (in terms of filling in gaps there). Makes me even more desperately want the residential tower added on... Would be a great mix of uses right there. Thanks for sharing!

The podium looks bigger than the actual hotel lol

Tivo_Kenevil wrote:The podium looks bigger than the actual hotel lol

I thought the same thing. Without the residential across from the hotel, the development looks off-center and the parking garage looks like the main component with the hotel being an afterthought.

PLEASE build the residential tower to make this thing look complete.

vman wrote:

Tivo_Kenevil wrote:The podium looks bigger than the actual hotel lol

I thought the same thing. Without the residential across from the hotel, the development looks off-center and the parking garage looks like the main component with the hotel being an afterthought.

PLEASE build the residential tower to make this thing look complete.

That, and ya know, to add residents to a new part of Downtown!

If these guys would just go for it and spend more money and get some decent architects who have their eye on what developers in other cities everywhere else are designing and building (hint: not blue curtain glass wall boxes) everything would look and be better here in Dallas. That said, I agree with vman and undefinedprocess--build that f'n residential tower now! If all we're ever gonna do is look at endless renderings of projects that never get built or ones that do, but always end up with the cheap, bottom-line Dallas version than may I suggest we all start looking at other cities for fun and skyscraper eye candies because there's tons of it elsewhere.

With the housing market crunch, I suspect there will be three to four more residential towers Downtown that may be built. I think Isosceles is a very good bet because they have the East Quarter name & financing behind them. Hunt's multi-purpose development is another good bet since the Hunt's have very deep pockets. Rohrman's Towers are on the cusp because they have a prime location, but not a lot of juice on the development scene. The Field Street development may have a good shot since they have a prime location, but the size of the development may be its downfall. Portman may be the wild card since they have a history on a national scale. The renderings appeared to be further along when the announcement was made of their purchasing the site, so they could be closer than one would think to moving some ground.

I like the way you think rono....Sure hope you're right. Here in St. Pete we have 6 going up at the same time with another 7 or 8 announced or soon to go. All residential, mostly for purchase. Two 46 story towers leading the list at the moment. Three or four hotels too.

Crane is coming down.....

Time sure does fly. I'm still a little surprised we weren't left with just a big parking cube.
I'm ready to be even more surprised if the apartment tower gets built.

Unpopular opinion (maybe): This is one of the tackiest-looking projects I've ever seen.

willyk wrote:

cowboyeagle05 wrote:Announced is right just like this tower was announced years ago with better renderings and look where we are. Announced and turning the soil with lots of heavy machinery are two very different things and I do not see any evidence that the Portman project will ever reach past renderings as well.

Portman has a lot of projects under construction all over the country? Why would they come all the way from Atlanta and spend $20M on a site just to sit on it? It’s a great site if you are going to build a gateway project, but nothing is great about it as a speculative play. I think they came here to build. https://www.dallasnews.com/business/rea ... as-towers/

At 2000 Ross, Sam Moon does mostly hotel properties, and the linked article by CTroyMathis above says the residential site was included in the package sold to investors. So there’s room to doubt that anything will happen soon on that one. But strong leasing at the Atelier would help build a case here. I wonder how they are doing.

Portman's projects tend to be architecturally underwhelming, but they do deliver.

That's certainly more than can be said for some prominent Dallas developers (looking at you Scott Beck...).

At least the podium has retail/restaurant at street level which is mostly filled. Yes, we definitely need the residential tower and the Portman Holdings site (formerly Spire) to get started asap. Ross ave is pretty dead. The only activated section that has activity on both sides is between Olive and Harwood.