Amid a leveled landscape of dirt and rubble, champagne and sparkling water flowed freely inside a white-top tent while cranes, construction equipment, and workers carried on feverishly around it. Those enjoying the refreshments in the tent Thursday morning had gathered to celebrate the groundbreaking of a high-rise apartment complex in Plano’s Legacy West, a 250-acre mixed-use development located at the North Dallas Tollway and State Highway 121.
One of those who’d gathered, Plano Mayor Harry LaRosiliere, called Legacy West “the center of the universe,” due to all the economic activity and new development in the vicinity. “This year is the ‘Year of the Big Bang,’ because a lot of this is coming to fruition,” LaRosiliere said. “So today is especially rewarding for us, because we are breaking ground on the next big phase of what’s going on in our Legacy West development.”
Developer NE Development and builder Hunt Construction are collaborating to make the residential building a reality—all 689,000 square feet of it. Named LVL29 because it will boast 29 stories, the elliptically-shaped building will be the first of its kind in Plano, Luke Harry, NE Development project manager, said in a statement. “It will transform the city’s skyline and stand out among a group of square buildings,” he added.
Harry told D CEO Real Estate that NE Development has been involved with the project since the summer of 2015, when it took over from other developers. Humphreys & Partners Architects and Henderson Design Studio also made significant contributions to the building’s design and layout.
According to Harry, the project’s financing came from a combination of private equity and a mortgage from Love Funding Corp. The mortgage is insured by the Federal Housing Administration. The total cost of the development is $130 million.
The high-rise will include 328 luxury apartment suites, ranging from 600-square-foot units (renting for $1,600 a month, or about $3 per square foot) to 3,800-square-foot penthouses with private garages. Residents will also have access to a 24-hour fitness center with a fitness-on-demand yoga room, a cabana with a fire pit, a bar and lounge veranda, a seven-story parking garage, an exclusive pool—and even a tanning deck. (“I don’t think I’m going to need to use it, though,” joked LaRosiliere, who is African-American.)
Inside, the common areas will feature dimensional textured walls, cantilevered ceilings, and designer chandeliers, as well as upscale furniture, greenbelt views, and customizable exterior lighting. The concept was to make LVL29’s interior reflect the gradient of the earth’s atmosphere, said Dawn Henderson, principal of the eponymous design studio. “So you have the light [colors] as you’re close to earth and, as you get out of the atmosphere, you get darker [colors],” said senior designer Amy Werntz. Likewise, pale colors will be used to paint the lower-level units, and darker hues will adorn the higher-level ones.
Fehmi Karahan, who’s developing Legacy West, said the community doesn’t necessarily “need” a high-rise like LVL29. But it’s an alternative option for future residents, he said, especially as more and more business professionals and executives are flocking to the area.
LVL29 is expected to be completed by May of 2019.
