Cityplace East: 2711 N. Haskell

[I45Tex]

http://www.dallascad.org/AcctDetailCom.aspx?ID=00C7713000TOWER00

http://www.datumengineers.com/assets/fi ... 20Book.pdf

http://www.datumengineers.com/assets/fi ... ctures.pdf

The last link states, for Cityplace,
"6, 7 & 9 Levels
9,000 Cars
2,500,000 Sq. Ft.
Post-Tensioned Concrete
1989"

while the first link states,
Parking Garage
8 stories
964,000 Sq. Ft.
1985

Now, other sources place the number of underground spaces at Tower at Cityplace between 3,300 and 3,400, which seems to mean a lot of the designed garage just wasn't completed. But is it really true that Cityplace goes eight levels underground? I haven't been inside, but always enjoyed seeing the stacked lobby atria from the freeway at night. This would make it another 50-story building, by the way.

Since the million square feet underground have (per the DallasCAD link) a footprint 79,000 sq. ft. larger than the above ground portion, and were built to be built atop, feel free to move posts over to this thread from the Xerox/ACS site -- itself the 7/11 HQ for a decade or two before 2711 (clever) was built -- conversation.

[I45Tex]

For more details on the history, this is a good page:

https://www.dmagazine.com/commercial-real-estate/2014/04/wayne-swearingen-the-story-of-cityplace/

[tamtagon]

That's enough parking to serve an entirely rebuilt Target shopping center.

[Tnexster]

I actually think it would be fun to go see this place.

Here lie the remains of a Dallas skyscraper that was never built

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/rea ... ever-built

[lakewoodhobo]

Dallas' landmark Cityplace Tower has a new owner
https://www.dallasnews.com/business/rea ... -new-owner

The high-profile building on the edge of Dallas' Uptown district was acquired by Dallas' Highland Capital Management.

Along with the office tower, the property that Highland Capital acquired includes underground parking for additional buildings that were never constructed on the site.

Parmenter Realty had prepared plans to build apartment, hotel and office space on along Haskell Avenue but never moved forward with those plans.

[itsjrd1964]

Also in D:
https://www.dmagazine.com/business-econ ... ace-tower/

[cowboyeagle05]

Let's hope they don't just slap some one-story restaurant space on the developable areas and call it done...

Planned improvements include upgrades to common areas and amenities, as well as adding new retail space and restaurants.

Let's take note of whats already been done. They upgraded the exterior lights to LED but don't appear to have made it possible to animate them. Also didn't the previous owner already redo the gym and lights in the common areas?

This seems like a tower that has had trouble finding its goal posts. It's still in a transitional spot and it has more going for it than many other older properties around Downtown. Access to a full-service grocery Kroger store, Target, LA Fitness signature. It's not a high-end area but those newish apartments are charging Uptown prices. It seems like with the right investment City Place tower could see quite the uptick in leasing for sure. I wonder why every owner skips on the development on the grounds?

[Tnexster]

Is there a disconnect being across the freeway from most of Cityplace. Not that I am an advocate of another park deck but the Cityplace area strikes me as a decent location for that kind of park bridge to reconnect west side to east side.

[lakewoodhobo]

Is there a disconnect being across the freeway from most of Cityplace. Not that I am an advocate of another park deck but the Cityplace area strikes me as a decent location for that kind of park bridge to reconnect west side to east side.

I think the only disconnect is that there's nothing "cool" to do on that side. All of Uptown is willing to shop there and work out there, but where is the chef-driven restaurant or the kombucha on tap?

If Eataly and The Central ever get started, that might all start to change. Maybe all that Cityplace Tower needs on the periphery is low-density retail.

[Cbdallas]

A big help would be to match the sidewalks and landscaping on that side with what you see in Uptown. That is the disconnect as you cross over central you immediately notice that you have left uptown.

[Hannibal Lecter]

That is the disconnect as you cross over central you immediately notice that you have left uptown.

OK, but is there a downside?

[cowboyeagle05]

It is that area caught between Deep Ellum, Downtown, Uptown and Baylor/East Dallas and Henderson so despite having a major icon of a tower with a recognizable name its lost with no identity of place. Its a pass through with neighborhood service businesses that any of those other areas would love to have closer access to if they had the chance. Its just has nothing that endears people to belong to it and wants more from it. So what we get is owner after owner of Cityplace who wants to invest to make their property worth more but still won't commit to doing more than changing out light bulbs and mowing the grass.

[lakewoodhobo]

New owners spending millions to redo Dallas' landmark CityPlace Tower
https://www.dallasnews.com/business/rea ... lace-tower

Cityplace Tower's owners just filed building permits for more than $9 million in upgrades to the huge office project at 2711 N. Haskell. Real estate brokers say that redevelopment plans for the Cityplace Tower include adding more amenities for the office tenants plus bringing mixed-use to the project.

[DPatel304]

Yes!! It's about time. I really just want to see the exterior re-developed to actually be something other than a fortress, but perhaps I'm expecting too much.

[CRE_Investor]

It's nice to hear something is happening, but don't expect to see much if anything on the outside based on a $9MM building permit for a 30 year old 1.3MM SF office building.

[NdoorTX]

yeah- I was excited, but for 9 million that's not going to be enough to make a huge impact unless there is a missing zero. I'm hoping this and the mixed-use comes to fruition. Haven't we heard this twice before regarding City Place Tower in recent years?

[Matt777]

For $9 million, I would think it's more repairs and nip/tuck versus a total re-do. And I'm okay with that. I like the 80s design of the building, the light fixtures, etc, but many of the light fixtures along the surrounding roads are broken and need to be repaired. I hope they don't try to "modernize" it with lots of white paint, glass, LEDs. The new exterior LED lights look terrible compared to the original IMHO. The old look was classy.

[muncien]

The way it is worded, it sounds like the $9M is allocated to the upgrades. The 'mixed use' part is almost mentioned as an afterthought. I wouldn't be surprised if these two were not tied together and on very different timelines. 'Upgrades' to these types of buildings tend to kick off almost immediately, while adding new structures would likely take a couple of years.

[Cbdallas]

There were some plans going around a few years back under different owners that showed midrise apartment building and retail around the base of that building but it never took off. Would love to see that density realized there especially with the DART subway stop.

[Cbdallas]

This was Parameter Realty Partners drawing for what they wanted to do with Cityplace.

[emmasensei]

I'm trying to understand the orientation in that rendering. Is that supposed to be people making the trek across a tree-lined Central Expressway on foot? Or is the Expressway in the background of the drawing?

I am dying to be able to comfortably cross the Expressway on foot or on bike. I live just off Henderson Ave and often cross over into Knox on foot, but it's such a depressing, tree-less experience. It's frustrating that the two sides are so segregated, and trying to bike down that end of Henderson is taking your life in your hands.

[dfwcre8tive]

I'm trying to understand the orientation in that rendering. Is that supposed to be people making the trek across a tree-lined Central Expressway on foot? Or is the Expressway in the background of the drawing?

I am dying to be able to comfortably cross the Expressway on foot or on bike. I live just off Henderson Ave and often cross over into Knox on foot, but it's such a depressing, tree-less experience. It's frustrating that the two sides are so segregated, and trying to bike down that end of Henderson is taking your life in your hands.

That's looking from N. Haskell.

Here's another view of the original plans.

[DPatel304]

I am dying to be able to comfortably cross the Expressway on foot or on bike. I live just off Henderson Ave and often cross over into Knox on foot, but it's such a depressing, tree-less experience. It's frustrating that the two sides are so segregated, and trying to bike down that end of Henderson is taking your life in your hands.

This made me think of this crossing in Arlington:
https://www.google.com/maps/@32.7601394 ... 384!8i8192

There's still room for improvement (with trees and greenery), but they've made a decent attempt here. I really wonder if this gets used at all, though.

[ArtVandelay]

The twin towers would have been sweeet

[lakewoodhobo]

Let's try this again.

Dallas' Cityplace Tower is getting luxury hotel rooms as part of a redo
https://www.dallasnews.com/business/rea ... -part-redo

The new owners of the 42-story office high-rise on North Central Expressway plan to convert eight floors of the tower into a 5-star InterContinental Hotels Group hotel.

The 233-room hotel addition is the biggest change ever for the 1.35 million-square-foot skyscraper, which was bought last summer by an affiliate of Dallas-based Highland Capital.

Plans call for the hotel to open in 2022.

All snark aside, converting the tower to mixed-use makes more sense before building new construction around the site, and having InterContinental in the urban core is a huge win.

[Matt777]

Let's try this again.

Dallas' Cityplace Tower is getting luxury hotel rooms as part of a redo
https://www.dallasnews.com/business/rea ... -part-redo

The new owners of the 42-story office high-rise on North Central Expressway plan to convert eight floors of the tower into a 5-star InterContinental Hotels Group hotel.

The 233-room hotel addition is the biggest change ever for the 1.35 million-square-foot skyscraper, which was bought last summer by an affiliate of Dallas-based Highland Capital.

Plans call for the hotel to open in 2022.

All snark aside, converting the tower to mixed-use makes more sense before building new construction around the site, and having InterContinental in the urban core is a huge win.

Very cool. I was hoping Fountain Place would do this with residential or hotel, and now that it has a residential tower within the complex it would be nice to see a hotel added to several of the empty floors. Especially with the EPA and Tenet leaving.

Cityplace has so much unlocked potential to become a mega retail/dining/live/work/stay complex, especially with the subway station right underneath it, and the empty parcels that surround it. If it was combined with the Target shopping complex, or at least part of it, it could become a mega development. Target just renovated a year or two ago, though, and that store is always busy. Does anyone have any rumors of the tenants that will be going into the Trammell Crow turd Frisco reject project right up the road? I remember a 2 story anchor tenant. Maybe Target to give them more space?

[itsjrd1964]

I wonder which of the 8 floors it will be? If there's going to be a top-floor amenity for the hotel, the floors should IMO be the top 8 floors. Will be interesting to see how they juggle it. The One Main (Place) Westin that went in a few years ago did the same thing, with non-hotel floors still in their original purpose as offices. The LTV tower, that became partially a Hilton Garden Inn a few years ago, faced the same issue that the Westin did, and this new Inter-Continental will also--how to arrange hotel lobby infrastructure alongside an existing use in the same building. Most of the time, the entrance treatment at Cityplace has been a locked-door-unless-you're-a-client-or-employee type of thing...no visitors or great-unwasheds allowed. With the hotel being added, the re-balancing of building security vs. openness for visitors and hotel guests will have to be addressed. Another aspect of the conversion will have to include plumbing infrastructure, as the Cityplace building hasn't had more than the occasional bathroom sink and toilet. I'm not sure what happened with the Westin, but I do know the Hilton Garden had *months* of hot water issues--the owners seemed to do all right with getting boilers and some pumps in place, but what pumps there were, weren't close to enough. Many guests were not aware that the building was originally built as an office building and bank. Eventually the owners relented and added more pumps. Another juggle will be the issue of what will be done to separate elevators meant for the hotel section from those still needed for the remaining Cityplace offices. The LTV tower owners placed a wall separating the elevators needed for the building's upper-floor apartments, from those that would just access the hotel section on the lower floors. To further separate apartment tenants and their visitors from others in the building, a door was set up between the main lobby and the alcove for the apartment elevators. The door was kept locked so tenants would need a pass.

In any event, the addition should be an interesting one at Cityplace.

[Cord1936]

All snark aside, converting the tower to mixed-use makes more sense before building new construction around the site, and having InterContinental in the urban core is a huge win.

Very cool. I was hoping Fountain Place would do this with residential or hotel, and now that it has a residential tower within the complex it would be nice to see a hotel added to several of the empty floors. Especially with the EPA and Tenet leaving.

Cityplace has so much unlocked potential to become a mega retail/dining/live/work/stay complex, especially with the subway station right underneath it, and the empty parcels that surround it. If it was combined with the Target shopping complex, or at least part of it, it could become a mega development. Target just renovated a year or two ago, though, and that store is always busy. Does anyone have any rumors of the tenants that will be going into the Trammell Crow turd Frisco reject project right up the road? I remember a 2 story anchor tenant. Maybe Target to give them more space?[/quote]

^^^^^^^
Very cool indeed.

CityPlace is starting to exhibit its potential ... with the Xerox/ACS redevelopment on the boards with its multiple skyscrapers and with CityPlace still having zoning in place to build another 42 story tower just imagine how this could look in a few years?


Downtown Dallas with CityPlace skyline in foreground, 11-27-18

[DPatel304]

Wow, cool shot! I've never really view Cityplace from this view so, to me, it never really felt like it was close enough to the towers in West Village, but as more and more towers go up here, there will certainly be a nice cluster soon enough.

[dfwcre8tive]

Flashback article; interesting read from 30 years ago:

CITYPLACE - A WORLD APART - Southland's new headquarters sits alone in its unfinished setting
Dallas Morning News, The (TX) (Published as The Dallas Morning News)
March 19, 1989
Author/Byline: David Dillon, Architecture Critic of The Dallas Morning News

Cityplace won't officially open for months, yet already it is a period piece, like a frame from Fritz Lang's 1930s film Metropolis. A tall shaft of stone along a freeway, with the downtown skyline as a backdrop -- the entire project is a reminder of the architectural gigantism that Dallas has always aspired to and can no longer sustain.

Cityplace was proposed in 1983 as the new "uptown downtown,' a city within a city, complete with office towers, hotel, shopping center, apartments and condominiums, and acres of green space. It was to be the new "gateway to downtown Dallas,' its twin towers framing North Central Expressway like a gigantic drawbridge. Le Corbusier could not have been more exultant about his visionary Radiant City than architect Araldo Cossutta about his "Rockefeller Center of Dallas.'

However questionable this urban goal, the Southland Corporation pursued it single-mindedly. Over the course of three years, it secretly assembled some 150 acres of prime inner-city land, bordered roughly by Lemmon, Haskell and Turtle Creek. Then, in a strategy reminiscent of urban renewal programs of the 1950s and 1960s, Southland demolished most of the houses and small office buildings on them in anticipation of the development millennium to come.

What came instead was the oil glut, the office glut and Southland's own costly leveraged buyout. Suddenly Cityplace's grand scheme became a scattering of grand fragments: the solitary 42-story East Tower, floating in a vast, empty plaza; a six-lane boulevard going from nowhere to nowhere, and block after block of vacant lots.

The future of Cityplace is murky, though chances of its being completed as originally designed are remote. Southland occupies only half of the East Tower. The plan for Phase II, approved by the city in December, allows for the construction of additional towers of up to 240 feet (20 stories) and approximately 6,000 units of housing. But there are no guarantees that any will ever be built. Southland is short on cash, and scouting for development partners. Its lenders are adamant about its avoid ing more debt. The proposed 42-story West Tower and all the low-rise office buildings are on indefinite hold.

The turnabout is dramatic, but hardly unique in Dallas. One Main Place, First Interstate Bank Tower and First RepublicBank Plaza are all half-completed grand designs that have become downtown landmarks.

But Cityplace is more startling, because of where it is located -- two miles from the heart of downtown, surrounded by one- and two-story buildings -- and because it promised so much more: not just new real estate, but a whole new urban community.

The best features of the completed East Tower, as in so many new Dallas buildings, are the interior spaces -- the lobbies and atriums, the elevators and corporate suites, with their rooftop greenhouses and solid granite window frames.

The main lobby is Medicean in proportions and finishes, resembling more an arcade in a Renaissance palace than a lobby. It runs straight through the building, front to back, and Cossutta has detailed every inch flawlessly: four kinds of marble on the floors and columns, African mahogany on the walls, rows of bronze lamps and sconces. Even the ceiling panels are held in place by thin strips of polished brass.

This is the most refined lobby in Dallas, elegant without being decadent, and one clue to why, at $225 per square foot, the East Tower is the most expensive office building in Dallas history. (Comparable luxury skyscrapers such as Momentum Place and Trammell Crow Center cost $140-160 per square foot to build.)

Atop the main lobby sit eight smaller lobbies, each five stories tall, that break the tower into comprehensible units. This innovative arrangement gives tenants a sense of intimacy and proprietorship that is often missing in conventional high-rise buildings. Here employees have access to their own piazzas, criss-crossed with bridges and flooded with natural light, and views of the city.

But the East Tower is ultimately less than the sum of these elegant parts. As one moves from the lobby to the plaza to the boulevard to the neighborhood, Cityplace becomes more disturbing and problematical. Though hardly the tallest building in Dallas, the East Tower is among the most dominant, looming over much of Oak Lawn and East Dallas day and night.

From the north and south, along Central, it resembles a gigantic waffle set on end. Its enormous bulk is partly concealed from these perspectives, but so is most of Cossutta's meticulous exterior detailing. His 40,000 pieces of hand-set granite become a pink smudge; the facade goes flat, two-dimensional.

Approached from the east or west -- along Lemmon or Haskell, for example -- the tower's true proportions become clear. This is no gentle giant. When neighborhood groups and the FAA succeeded in getting eight stories lopped off the original design, Southland made no corresponding reduction in width, and so sacrificed the building's slender, vertical profile. Instead of soaring, it seems to puff and bluster, like an overfed colonel.

Ironically, the East Tower would have made a better architectural impression at 50 stories than at 42. The abridged version is ponderous, tons of meticulously detailed granite thundering to the pavement, relieved only by an occasional arch or entrance canopy.

The East Tower is surrounded by a large plaza with an amphitheater and a handsomely paved square with custom-designed street lamps.

In the original grand plan, these spaces would have been framed by seven-story office and retail buildings and used as public spaces by employees. Now they are windswept and rather forlorn, except for several small pitched-roof structures added at the last minute to conceal air vents for the underground parking garage.

These outbuildings add a middle scale, between flat earth and 42 stories, to the plaza, proving that serendipity has its place in urban design.

The east tower is bordered on the north by the Haskell Mall, a six-lane boulevard with granite curbs, brick sidewalks, a 60-foot-wide grass median and hundreds of trees -- an estimated $20 million in public works.

The mall is offered implausibly as Dallas' answer to Boston's Commonwealth Avenue. Yet even if it were completed all the way west to Blackburn, as proposed, it is unlikely that the mall "will invite people to stroll, relax, play and enjoy the outdoors,' as the marketing brochure predicts. It was designed for cars, not people, a swift, smooth passage to the tower and the parking garage. It is grandeur without a larger public purpose.

At the far eastern end of the mall, where Haskell and Lemmon merge, Southland is constructing 228 moderate-income housing units, renting for $350 to $650 per month. They are not, it should be noted, additions to the city's housing stock, but a partial replacement for the 600 apartments that Southland demolished in preparation for the East Tower. As designed by Good, Haas & Fulton of Dallas, they are perfectly adequate suburban apartments, with patios, surface parking and other conventional amenities. They are not prototypes for the future.

Is Dallas now stuck with Cityplace's elegant bits and pieces amid a vast blighted area? Yes, unless Southland scraps Cossutta's grand plan in favor of a series of small plans to be implemented gradually and that over time may add up to a community -- plans for individual blocks, for racially and economically mixed housing, for schools and recreational space. No more Haskell Malls or grand plazas. They are big, expensive vestiges of big plans that make no room for contingencies. Can Southland learn to think boldly on a small scale?

gallery_3421_PAR01T_lobby1_1920x1080.jpg

[itsjrd1964]

OMG, the greatness of David Dillon. How he is missed. A true asset to the DMN--too bad they didn't see him that way, ultimately.

[Cbdallas]

They had to shave off 8 stories I never new that bit.

[Tnexster]

They had to shave off 8 stories I never new that bit.

Too bad isn't it? Would have looked better at 50.

[itsjrd1964]

As high as are most planes I see that go over Cityplace, another 8 stories probably wouldn't have mattered IMO.

[TreeFrog]

As high as are most planes I see that go over Cityplace, another 8 stories probably wouldn't have mattered IMO.

Living just a little over a mile east of that tower, I'm not sure. I'm no aviation expert by any means, but it does seem in low clouds/visibility planes approaching Love Field feel awfully close to the ground and loud. I know it always surprises me. I'm sure there is some kind of margin of safety involved there since it seems that tower is directly in the approach path.

[Ersatz]

Hmmmm. I guess there were bitchy, negative, anti-development haters three decades before social media and blogs were even imagined.

[Tivo_Kenevil]

Hmmmm. I guess there were bitchy, negative, anti-development haters three decades before social media and blogs were even imagined.

Ersatz used to be my graffiti tag back in the day...

[dallaz]

Dallas’ Cityplace Tower developers say hotel will open in 2022

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/rea ... ower-redo/

[itsjrd1964]

I wonder, besides the other hotel amenities, if the owners/developers are thinking of having a different parking area built and available for guests, or if they will make everyone do like some of the downtown properties and have only valet-based parking without self-parking.

[scott2]

Well the article mentions 3000 parking spaces underground but does not mention a ballroom or event space associated with the hotel and that would require large amounts of parking. They can easily set aside 100-200 space for hotel visitors.

[cowboyeagle05]

Well the article mentions 3000 parking spaces underground but does not mention a ballroom or event space associated with the hotel and that would require large amounts of parking. They can easily set aside 100-200 space for hotel visitors.

I guess you missed this part if it's still the plan.

Highland Capital has previously said the 233-room InterContinental will include more than 21,000 square feet of meeting space and a top-floor ballroom and banquet space with views of the nearby downtown skyline.

[itsjrd1964]

That many rooms as well as the meeting/ballroom space will definitely require a good bit of dedicated parking somewhere.

[cowboyeagle05]

Just depends on a number of factors. Valet will most likely be the parking requirement and office workers will not need parking after 4. With that many floors reserved for the hotel plus nearby parking lots that Valet could make a deal with I doubt they will need any serious parking restructuring.