A trio of seasoned developers/investors have big plans for prime land in downtown Dallas. Woods Capital, Kaizen Development, and Dundon Capital Partners today acquired two tracts on McKinney Avenue, with plans to bring a mixed-use neighborhood to the area that connects the Arts District and the West End.
Development plans include office, residential, and hospitality towers, all built around walkable restaurant and retail uses, open spaces, and other amenities. The tracts, at 1012 and 1100 McKinney Ave., between Woodall Rodgers Freeway and Field Street, are zoned for 5 million square feet.
Initial plans for the first phase call for 750,000 square feet of office space, 50,000 square feet of retail space, and 300 multifamily units. Construction is expected to get underway in the fall of 2020.
Jonas Woods, CEO of Woods Capital, has been an active player in the urban core since acquiring Thanksgiving Tower in 2013. “The development of upscale office, residential and retail along Field Street over the next few years will create exciting connections between Uptown, Victory Park, the West End, the Arts District, and the Main Street district,” he said in a statement. “Our project is the nexus of all of these exciting neighborhoods.”
Kaizen Development (the subject of a recent profile in D CEO) had focused on an office park in Allen until becoming the surprise winner in a bid to buy a sought-after site between Victory Park and Uptown. It’s now busy with a 300,000-square-foot vertical mixed-use project called The Link.
Kaizen and Woods Capital secured rights to the nearly 6-acre McKinney Avenue tracks from the Shraman South Asian Museum and Learning Center Foundation, a nonprofit formed by Dr. Vinay Jain. They then formed a joint venture with Dundon Capital Partners, led by billionaire Tom Dundon, to close the deal. The foundation was represented by Sarah Hinkley of Thirty-Four Commercial, who also brokered Kaizen’s Uptown acquisition.
The Woods-Kaizen-Dundon partners say they’re already fielding interest from several large office users. “Rarely is there an opportunity to truly place-make in an urban infill setting,” said Derrick Evers, CEO of Kaizen, in a statement. “A site of this size with our entitlements simply does not exist within any other Tier 1 market in the country.”
