Ray Washburne Holds Out for Dallas’ Eminent Domain Move

20 September 2025

Ray Washburne is set to squeeze more money out of the City of Dallas by way of a land deal for its planned $3.5 billion convention center redevelopment.

The Highland Park Village owner already sold the former Dallas Morning News headquarters at 508 Young Street to the city for $45.1 million earlier this summer, outplaying city management with a gambit to sell it to a data center operator. He paid $28 million for the property in 2019, putting the gain at 46 percent minus holding costs over six years.

Now the city wants another piece of the former Dallas Morning News property that Washburne owns, and it’s trying to take it by eminent domain. City attorneys filed a “condemnation” lawsuit over the 36,000-square-foot parcel, a parking lot between the old newspaper building and WFAA’s headquarters, after the city couldn’t strike a $6.5 million deal that would’ve paid Washburne $181 per square foot for the parcel, which was included in his $28 million purchase.

Eminent domain cases are supposed to find the fair market value of property that a government entity wants to buy. Recent high-profile examples include the Alamo Trust and City of San Antonio’s effort to seize a bar near the Alamo by eminent domain. In that case, Vince Cantu, the former owner of Moses Rose’s Hideout, was paid $6.75 million in the city’s eminent domain lawsuit after he rejected offers of $4 million and $6 million.

To Washburne, who recently combined his family real estate office with his wife’s, $750,000 would be a rounding error. But the holdout is a major power play for the charismatic businessman.

Here’s what else happened in Texas real estate this week.

Who doesn’t want an H-E-B supermarket in their backyard? These neighbors in Northeast Dallas who say the proposed lot the San Antonio-based grocer wants to build on is too small and the development will cause too much traffic.

The Texas Legislature deregulated “Ag shacks” in College Station, overriding a local ordinance that aimed to limit how many students can live in one house.

A historic ranch outfitted for cutting horses hit the market recently for $21 million. The 900-acre property in Bosque County, about an hour and a half from Dallas, was the homestead of James “Buck” Barry, a Texas Ranger, Confederate veteran and former state legislator.

The battle over Texas’ law banning “traveling” housing finance corporations got messier.

A Denver-based investor expanded its “Rodeo Belt” multifamily portfolio with a purchase in Austin, where there is hope that the apartment slump could swing back in a couple of years.

Meanwhile in Cowtown, the first condos in the Seven at Bowie House, an Auberge-branded property in Fort Worth’s Cultural District, are hitting the market. A unit in the development is listed for $5.5 million, or $2,000 per square foot.