The nitty-gritty of the plan has yet to evolve, but it is hoped that a groundbreaking can be had this year. "There's a lot of political work that has to be done," Charles Cotten, senior vice president of Dallas-based Cousins Stone, told GlobeSt.com. The property already is situated in a TIF district so that's one battle out of the way. Cotten says it will be 60 to 90 days before the preliminary plan is finalized. The undertaking is so new that it has yet to be named. Once the plan's in place, the search begins for developers for the various components.
"This is the last chance to do something like this," Cotten says of today's Las Colinas, which has been evolving since the mid-1970s. The 600 acres, the largest of the remaining contiguous tracts in the 12,000-acre master-planned community, is part of a 1,400-acre holding of Las Colinas LP. The limited partnership had acquired the land in 1989 when it bought 3,000 acres from the family of developer John Carpenter, one of a handful of businessmen who had been responsible for Dallas' rise. A price has yet to be tacked onto the latest undertaking, but land right now is fetching anywhere between $4 per sf and $20 per sf.
The 600 acres to be developed has two buildings in its midst: the corporate campus for The Associates and the Las Colinas Medical Center. The acreage is bounded by major arteries and bisected by another, giving it easy access to virtually any point in the metroplex including the Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport, which is just minutes away.
It's not uncommon to develop entire towns in the Lone Star State so the undertaking seems perfectly natural to the backers, Las Colinas' largest landholder. And it's perfectly fitting that the lead planner is Andres Duany, principal of Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. of Miami. DPZ had fathered Seaside, FL, the first New Urbanism concept brought to fruition in 1980.
Duany's team has been selected for the ground-zero planning from a field of three, Cotten told GlobeSt.com. "We wanted to hire a firm that's recognized in New York, Florida, California or anywhere we went," he says. Certainly, DPZ falls into that category. Locally, the noted firm is responsible for the master planning of Legacy Town Center, North Richland Hills Town Center and Southlake Town Center. Nationally, DPZ is recognized from coast to coast for its compact, mixed-use projects that keep everything within reasonable walking distance.
The plan, unveiled for the first time last night, is the result of a weeklong charette of DPZ planners, local officials and Cousins Stone, Las Colinas' development manager. DPZ's mission is to keep the Las Colinas sprawl of miles of retail and residential communities from invading the acreage and do so in an orderly fashion. Duany's not talking a pre-World War II town likened after Eleanor Roosevelt's national housing program. It's more from the layouts of well-heeled projects such as Georgetown, Beacon Hill or even Highland Park or University Park, two of Dallas' finest examples of quality lifestyles within walking distance of schools, shops and everyday services.
Only this project, a 50-50 mix of commercial and residential, will boast the preferred look of the millennium - lofts. "We're trying to establish a new market niche," Duany told GlobeSt.com. "How many people get excited about the three-story marble atrium any more. ... What is exciting is the loft."
Duany's loft handiwork just happens to be the January cover story for Builders Magazine. Class-A towers are out; "workplaces," similar to Dallas' Deep Ellum, are in. The downtown component will have hundreds of buildings in an aesthetically pleasing and people-sensitive environment.
Only a small percentage will be single-family dwellings. There are about 4,000 multifamily units planned plus two schools and a light-rail transit station. Garden row houses and zero lot lines will dominate the residential component. Some lofts will have first-floor shop space with upper-floor living space. But all will be live-work designs. "No one should be building a dwelling today that's not able to be a work-home environment," emphasizes Duany.
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