$5B In New Development Headed For Land Around Downtown Dallas' Reunion Tower
Hunt Realty Investments is redoubling its commitment to Downtown Dallas with a $5B redevelopment plan for its more than 20-acre property around Reunion Tower.
The firm will build a dozen new high-rises encompassing 5M SF, The Dallas Morning News reports. The project could include as many as 3,000 apartments, a convention hotel with up to 1,000 rooms, 150K SF of retail and up to 2M SF of offices surrounding a 3-to-4-acre park.
Located between Interstate 35 East and Houston Street, the development is intended to support the city’s $3B effort to replace the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center.
“We think the timing is right with what’s happening at the convention center,” Hunt Investment Holdings CEO Chris Kleinert told the DMN. “This will be an incredible asset for the city.”
The project is expected to house 5,000 residents, which amounts to a third of Downtown’s current population. Up to half of the planned units will be set aside as workforce housing, Hunt Realty Investments President Colin Fitzgibbons told the DMN.
Hunt Realty is one of the most prolific developers currently active downtown. The firm’s 11-acre North End project is slated to include up to 3.7M SF of retail, multifamily, hotel and office space. It will be anchored by Goldman Sachs’ 800K SF office campus.
The company is also behind the 2,500-acre Fields project in Frisco.
Hunt has owned the Reunion property since its inception in the 1970s. Much of the property around the iconic observation tower and Hyatt Regency Hotel has remained vacant. Even more land was freed up after Reunion Arena was torn down in 2009.
“I cannot tell you how many inquiries we have received to buy 2 acres or buy this or that,” Kleinert told the DMN. “We’ve heard more than once you guys haven’t done anything down there in decades. We’d rather have something we are proud of than something that was pieced together without real thoughtful planning.”
What Hunt has planned would result in $750M in property taxes over the next 20 years.
The development is the largest new real estate investment to be made in the area around the convention center since voters approved funding for its replacement last year. It joins a list of other notable developments underway in the area, including plans by Ray Washburne’s Charter Holdings to redevelop the northern arch around the existing center.
