Meet CityLine’s $500M TOD Neighbor
Dirt will be flying within 90 days on a new $500M TOD just west of KDC’s mammoth CityLine project. We talked with one of the developers yesterday to find out how this project will make a good neighbor to State Farm.
Joe Altemore, one of three principals heading up BC Station Partners (which includes Jim Wills and Sam Swanson), tells us they just closed on 54 acres at the southeast corner of Central Expressway and the President George Bush Turnpike adjacent to DART’s Bush Turnpike light rail station. BCSP’s project (which hasn't been named yet) could make this intersection the new front door for Richardson. BCSP plans more than 1.35M SF of office, 100k SF of retail, a hotel and 1,250 multifamily units (rendering of Phase 1 pictured), Joe tells us. The trio of longtime local commercial real estate veterans purchased the land from the W.W. Caruth Jr. Foundation at Communities Foundation of Texas. First on the agenda is the construction of CityLine Drive from Central Expressway through the CityLine development. This portion of the roadway is anticipated to be completed this summer.
Joe says the main road through the heart of the project will connect it with Central Expressway and CityLine. Plans are complete and that road construction should start by the end of April. There will also be a north/south thoroughfare to connect Renner Road to the George Bush Turnpike, Joe tells us. That one is in engineering and will have to go through the City before being put out to bid. Joe tells us the project will be very pedestrian-oriented with wide sidewalks and bike racks. He tells us the trio of developers is “old school” and is funding the project entirely with equity. “We don’t leverage anything,” he says. The first piece of the project will be the multifamily, which will have an urban feel, Joe says. The Alexan CityLine development is the first of four multifamily communities (designed by Good Fulton & Farrell) and developed by Trammell Crow Residential. It should break ground next month with 351 units and deliver in late summer 2016. (KDC's CityLine rendering pictured.)
Transwestern Development Co will be developing the office portion at the northeast corner of Central and Renner Road, Joe tells us. Transwestern managing director Steve Williamson (right, with Mason Bishop) negotiated the land acquisition for Transwestern Development Co. Younger Partners' Todd Jones repped the seller. (Todd tells us the adjacent 31 acres is under contract on the west side of 75. That developer will have office, hotel and retail sites available for sale with connectivity to DART via the pedestrian trail. This 31 acres is the final opportunity within the TOD at the Bush station.) Joe says office construction won’t start until there’s some pre-leasing, but they already have prospective tenants. The office will be comparable in design and construction to Class-A Uptown product, but with a more affordable price tag because the Richardson land costs are some one-tenth of the Uptown dirt. “Anyone who has a development dialed in with entitlements and infrastructure with mass transit models will have a leg up on most sites,” he says.
