Matthews got his start working for his father’s Canadian construction and development company. In 1988, business began migrating south, with a few investments in North Texas. He struck out on his own in the early ’90s. “Basically the politics in Canada were such that smart businesspeople would look at expanding to other places that weren’t Canada,” he says.
He didn’t make his first real splash in Dallas until almost a decade later, when he bought the Sears building and set about turning it into a downtown-cool loft complex. Most would consider South Side on Lamar the key to his kingdom on Lamar Street, the springboard for everything else. In a way, that’s true. He roams the halls like a tenant instead of a landlord. He knows many of the residents by name.
Truth is, though, the real foundation for it all is a piece of property he doesn’t even own: the dirt under Jack Evans Police Headquarters.
The 365,000-square-foot facility was finished in March 2003, a few years after Matthews donated the 3.25-acre parcel to the city. The land was worth about $1 million at the time, but what he got in return was much better than cash.
When Matthews announced his idea for South Side, there were two major obstacles. One: “There was nobody here,” he says. And two: it was doubtful anybody would come, mainly because of safety concerns. With one clever transaction, Matthews solved both problems—and established a sterling reputation within city government. City Manager Mary Suhm is effusive in her praise for Matthews.
Matthews has always been mindful of one word—population—and it comes up often when he talks about Lamar Street. When Matthews says population, he doesn’t just mean people. He also means “life.” Matthews found an inspired way to bring that life to South Side, while also satisfying the terms of a low-income HUD loan: he turned the downstairs loading dock into a sort of artists’ colony, 14 lofts with living quarters and studio space. Lease agreements typically offer 1,000 square feet in exchange for $500 a month in rent (plus contributing artwork, community service, and building beautification on an ongoing basis). The artists made South Side feel like a community, with its own unique energy.
“This place without the artists wouldn’t be anything as interesting or exciting as it is,” Matthews says. “All great neighborhoods start with music and the arts.”
That idea extends beyond South Side’s front door. It’s here in the form of the Palladium Ballroom and Bill’s Records (both housed in buildings Matthews owns). It is also there in the future of the neighborhood, with more artists’ lofts scattered up and down the street, mixed among storefront retail and restaurants and high-rise condos. It’s the South Side model applied to an entire area. It’s population.
“On New Year’s Eve, there were more people here than there were at the American Airlines Center,” he says. “But you wouldn’t know that. You didn’t read about that. You didn’t see it anywhere.”
No, no one pays attention to the man in the khakis with the funny accent. They don’t see him coming, even after he’s already arrived.
To Matthews, the convention center hotel isn’t just a hotel. He plans to situate the building south of the Convention Center, instead of the 8.4-acre site on the north side the city put a $500,000 option on. It’s a major reorientation of the city.
Of course he wants to put it there, you might say. The reorientation will direct the city toward all the property he already owns. But just because Matthews stands to gain doesn’t mean he’s wrong. The city has invested heavily in the Trinity River project, and that makes the land between the Convention Center and the river some of the most important real estate in the city. It needs to work.
Matthews has ideas about that. A couple of years ago, as he was snapping up land along Lamar Street, he hired Foster + Partners to design a master plan for his current and future interests, including The Beat, a soon-to-open 10-story condominium.
“When I was first doing this study, Norman Foster kept on saying this is a natural place for a convention center hotel,” he says. He’s looking at a satellite map of downtown and the Cedars area, pointing at the acreage he owns. “Foster basically hit me over the head one day and said, ‘Jack, you’ve got a responsibility. If you’re doing it, you have to do it right. You have a responsibility to try to do it here.’ I was like, ‘Wow, I didn’t realize I had these responsibilities.’ ” He laughs. “But I do have a responsibility to do it right, I agree.”
He’s talking about the hotel, but he could be talking about his other properties. The master plan he and Foster came up with is a pedestrian-friendly, transit-oriented development straight out of the forwardDallas! playbook. He’s looking at the map again, off and running. Put a tower here, a tower there. Low-rise in between. Lots of local businesses. Few, if any, chains. An office building here. A green space there. It’s all about density and walking and (again) population.
Hovering over the table in his South Side conference room, he flips to a section in Foster’s master plan that covers parking. He is excited now, talking about wind studies and lighting. It’s kind of wonky, the sort of talk that would have even the most engaged city planner absently checking his iPhone. He points to a drawing of a tiered building with a living roof that doesn’t much resemble a parking garage.
“Having a green roof on the parking structure, economically it’s not great. You lose space,” he says. “But livability? It’s off the charts. It keeps it cool. The views are of green, not concrete. You know, there has to be a better way of doing it.”
That green-roofed parking structure that has Matthews so excited will be more than just an artist’s rendering at some point. So will the rest of the drawings in his master plan. It’s only a matter of when.
“If we’re successful with the convention center hotel, then all bets are off the table,” he says. “Three, four years max. If that doesn’t happen, then we just march it up the street.”
Look for the man in the khakis leading the way.
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