Dirt took the spotlight this week.
High-rises and arenas got plenty of lines in the week’s drama, with foreclosures rattling Uptown and San Antonio considering a hefty investment in a home for the Spurs, but the main character was land.
First, came news that construction is underway on an empty lot with a rich history in Houston’s gayborhood. Southeastern Company is building a mid-rise apartment project on the grave of “Disco Kroger,” the Montrose grocery store where drag queens and partygoers would wrap up a night out, thanks to its 24-hour schedule and proximity to the neighborhood’s LGBTQ bars and clubs. The iconic store was closed and demolished in 2021.
Whether or not new development is blanching the funky soul of Houston, Fort Worth is counting on it to infuse life into Panther Island, a flood mitigation project decades in the making that’s expected to create a vibrant mixed-use development on the Trinity River. The Tarrant Regional Water District is vetting developers for the land, over 30 acres of which can accommodate buildings. The Fort Worth City Council recently approved heightened density for the project, establishing minimum height requirements for 15 acres of the project.
Meanwhile, unlikely neighbors SpaceX and Cards Against Humanity settled a quirky tiff over a plot of land at the Texas-Mexico border. The irreverent card game maker claimed Elon Musk’s company, located at nearby Starbase, dumped trash on the land it bought in protest of the border wall in 2017. The pair settled for undisclosed terms last month.
Uptown Dallas
Dallas has historically grown north. Lately, it’s also been shrinking from the south. Local companies and out-of-state transplants alike have long favored Uptown, a neighborhood north of downtown known for its walkability and liveliness. Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Deloitte are just a few of the firms with plans to ditch Downtown Dallas’ blocky ’80s high-rises in favor of Uptown’s trails and trolley line.
However, despite these indications of demand, Uptown office landlord Harwood International is struggling to stabilize assets in its namesake neighborhood, Harwood District.
Gabriel Barbier-Mueller’s firm has quietly offloaded four office properties to San Francisco-based hedge fund TPG, the same firm that’s supposedly financing Harwood’s latest project, Harwood No. 15.
News of the trades come as Harwood faces its third office foreclosure this year. Harwood No. 1 at 2651 North Harwood Street, the company’s first office development, is scheduled to be auctioned next month, according to Roddy’s Foreclosure Listing Service. The $37.45 million debt on the building amounts to $355 per square foot.
Harwood’s issues are isolated to its 30-acre district. The Uptown office submarket still has some of the lowest vacancy rates and highest rental rates of the Dallas-Fort Worth office market.
Spurs vs. Mavs
The San Antonio Spurs trounced the Dallas Mavericks this week, and they may win the race to a new arena to boot. But first they’ll need the backing of voters.
As part of Project Marvel, the $4 billion redevelopment project aimed at transforming downtown San Antonio, local leaders plan to build a new arena for the Spurs. On Election Day, voters have the opportunity to weigh in on two ballot measures to fund the project.
Proposition A would authorize the county to collect $192 million for the redevelopment of Frost Bank Center and Freeman Coliseum into a stock show and rodeo district. If Proposition B passes, the county can collect $311 million for the new arena.
Polls show middling support for the measures a few weeks before the election. A survey from the University of Texas at San Antonio’s Center for Public Opinion Research found that 44 percent of voters back Proposition A, and nearly 40 percent support Proposition B.
Critics of Project Marvel, including newly elected Mayor Gina Ortiz, want to make sure the Spurs foot enough of the bill. Beyond the venue tax, the city plans to chip in $489 million, and the Spurs plan to contribute $500 million.
Meanwhile, the Mavs announced earlier this year that they’d like to get out of the house that Dirk built. American Airlines Center is the last professional sports venue in Dallas proper, and the prospect of losing the team to a suburb like Irving or Frisco is rankling some locals. The city has teased a different centrally located site: City Hall, a brutalist landmark designed by I.M. Pei and made famous in Robocop. The aging building has racked up a costly bill of deferred maintenance, and the City of Dallas is considering selling it and redeveloping it into a new arena.
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Uptown landlord Harwood falters with third office foreclosure this year
