One of the local owners, Andrew Kasnetz, did not return telephone calls by publication time to discuss the pending offering for a pair of West End properties, a 71,765-sf, five-story office building and 6,900-sf structure with a 23-stall parking lot; 1516 Elm St., a 25,000-sf, five-story structure built in 1900; and 2909 Thomas St., a pair of two-story buildings with 5,551 sf divvied into three apartments and retail space. It's been no secret around town that the buildings, one or all, were available at the right price and being quietly offered to scores of condo converters scouring downtown and Uptown for redevelopment propositions.

The decision comes at a time when the in-town multifamily market has reached 94.4% occupancy, the second highest in the Dallas metro, and rent is 1% higher than a year ago, one of a handful of sectors to show some gain, Greg Willett, editorial director of M/PF Research Inc. in Carrollton, tells GlobeSt.com. The average in-town rent is $1,161 per month or $1.26 per sf, cornering the top spot on the metro price index.

"It's a market where new product is dominant and the reason for the high rents," Willett says, noting 8,700 of the 11,500 units in downtown and Uptown were built in the past decade. Another 1,456 rental units are rising, with deliveries coming within 18 months. Some will be good candidates for a swing to condos after they're completed, he says.