Real Estate

On May 19, Downtown Dallas Inc. hosted a luncheon featuring Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm. Her keynote address, a state of the city, provided a synopsis of recent successes in downtown and a look at what we’ll see in the coming years. Those successes, both past and future, have a common theme—public-private partnerships.

From the beginning of downtown’s renaissance in the mid 1990’s, the cooperation of the public and private sectors has been critical in the development of residential, commercial office, retail, and open space. It is the belief of our elected officials that a vibrant downtown is necessary for the health of the entire city, and confidence from the private sector that an investment in the center city is not only a motivation of civic pride, but also a sound business decision.

Read the rest of the story at DRealPoints

The official debut of trendy, gourmet food trucks in Dallas keeps inching closer.

In the past few weeks, the Arts District was rezoned to allow the mobile vendors. Now, two major regulatory hurdles remain: a rule that keeps the truck from staying in one place for over an hour and another that favors less hazardous (but often less healthy) modes of food preparation like cooking frozen chicken and deep-frying.

A City Council vote about the one hour restriction is scheduled for June 1st, according to Veletta Forsythe Lill, executive director of Downtown Dallas, Inc. and a major food truck advocate.

Read remainder of the story at the Dallas Morning News

The owners of a downtown Dallas skyscraper are planning a multi-million dollar redo.

Fortis Property Group of New York has restructured the debt on its Harwood Center office tower on Bryan Street. And the owners have hired Cushman & Wakefield of Texas to take over leasing the building.

Fortis plans to spend $6 million for capital improvements in the tower and about $10 million in leasing and tenant space improvement, according to Cushman & Wakefield.

The 36-story office tower at 1999 Bryan St. was built in 1982.

Read remainder of the story at the Dallas Morning News

Dallas is missing its grand boulevard. The Champs Eleyees in Paris or Las Ramblas in Barcelona are examples of ones. Are you up for the challenge of temporarily creating one in Dallas? Join the Better Block Team in partnership with the City of Dallas’ Complete Street Imitative, Downtown Dallas Inc and Dallas Arts District as we demonstrate the beauty and function of a complete street.

Over three days and three nights, Team Better Block invites you and your team to make-over Ross Avenue from Pearl Street to Washington Street into a welcoming, comfortable and vibrant boulevard. Form a team today and will give you the canvas to make a great place.  We have provided five segments for you to strut your creative skills. The general form of boulevard makeover includes a market, gallery, music venue, food court and transit plaza.

VOLUNTEER Sign-up with Andrew@streetspace.org

Common posts on the social media scene are talking about QR Codes, what they are and how to use them. Below I have included an example of what one looks like. This particular specimen links directly to Brad Holden’s Channel Page on YouPlusDallas.

Great, so what does it do? I get about a hundred questions a day asking me what is the point to these little pieces of pixel vomit. First and foremost, they are links. These bad boys are used to direct a user to a space online or download something onto your mobile device. Notice that I said mobile device. I wrote another blog article explaining why these things are awesome for folks on the go, not sitting in front of their computer. Read it if you need clarification, I’m not going to rewrite it here. Instead, I want to talk about how useful QR Codes can become in the residential real estate market (stay tuned for the commercial real estate market). (more…)