After four years of neglect, and just as many rejections by would-be developers, the biggest empty building in downtown Dallas is to get a $175m (£105) revamp.
Elm Place, centre left, was built in 1965 for the First National Bank and was the tallest building in Dallas for 15 years
Built in 1965 — and for 15 years the Texan city’s tallest building — the 52-storey former First National Bank tower, now known as Elm Place, presented too big a project for the majority of its short-lived owners. But not, it seems, for Olympic Property Partners which is about to start work on remodelling the skyscraper’s one-million square feet of empty offices.
After acquiring the white elephant property earlier this year the New York-based developers will start by ripping out the interior, while leaving its exterior intact. Rebuilding is scheduled for early next year, once the site has been declared asbestos free, and will take about 18 months. When the remodelled tower reopens its lower levels will have been converted to retail units, offices and parking for 500 vehicles, with the upper floors turned into apartments.
On the ninth floor, the developers plan to create a large outdoor park area with restaurant space. “We are going to reopen the old observation deck on the 50th floor,” Bryan Dorsey, of BDRC 4Site, a local partner in the project explained. “We will also blow out enclosed areas on the lower floors for new public spaces and install bright graphics and signage.”
Almost a third of the $175m budget is coming from city incentives. “Without those tax increment finance district dollars, we would not be able to motivate the capital to do this job,” conceded OPP’s principal Seth Weinstein. “It showed just how committed the city of Dallas is to this project.”
Elm Place tower closed when its owners could no longer afford to operate the mostly vacant high-rise. Since then it has changed hands three times, with every new buyer walking away from the project.
Olympic’s scheme will be downtown Dallas’s largest redevelopment of its kind in an area where more than a dozen old office buildings have already been re-purposed for new apartments, retail and commercial space. “Leaving any major asset like this to just sit there and decay is not an option,” said John Crawford, of the economic development group Downtown Dallas Inc. “It is a drag on everything around it and the entire downtown area.”
Weinstein, who has secured equity and debt to pay for the remodelling, admitted he saw the potential of the tower the first time he visited it. “These 1960s and 70s buildings were built like fortresses,” he added. “They didn’t encourage people to walk into the building. We are going to open up all four sides of the building to invite people in. And I’m convinced that the sheer size of the project will in itself create a critical mass of interest.”
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