Condo builder targeting Fort Worth
Dallas developer plans for 50 units near downtown
http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/st...30/story5.html
Holli L. Estridge
Staff Writer
Centex Corp.'s CityHomes, known for its condo developments filling in bits of Uptown Dallas and Addison, is planning its first project in downtown Fort Worth.
CityHomes will erect the three-story, 50-unit project called Westview at the intersection of Texas and Henderson streets, just east of downtown Fort Worth.
The site, which is bordered by Firestone Apartments to the north and AMLI Apartments to the south, once housed a Chrysler car lot and auto shop. CityHomes is buying the property from the Moorman Meador Estate, which asked $1.5 million for the property. CityHomes did not say what it paid.
CityHomes plans to close on the property in February, said Steve Magee, Centex's senior vice president of real estate for Dallas-Fort Worth. The company will demolish vacant buildings on the site and start work on the first building by April 2007. The company expects residents to begin to move in beginning in December 2007.
Before Centex Homes bought Dallas-based CityHomes in 2001, the upscale urban townhome developer was one of the largest builders of luxury townhomes in the Oak Lawn area. For nearly a decade, the subsidiary has primarily focused on the Dallas market.
Attractive demographics
Magee said job creation and announced expansions in the nearby hospital district attracted CityHomes to downtown Fort Worth. "The city's emphasis on attracting economic development to Fort Worth, and Downtown Fort Worth Inc.'s plan to bring 10,000 new units to downtown over the next few years, as well as the waterfront project, all made us think it would be good for us to enter that market," Magee said.
The downtown condo units will range in size from 1,100 to 1,350 square feet, selling for between $200,000 and $300,000. Among CityHomes' other Metroplex projects is a 180-unit, three-story townhome development in Addison Circle.
Centex's development and the price range of its planned units is exactly what the downtown Fort Worth market needs, according to Tom Struhs, developer of the Trinity Bluffs townhomes in Uptown Fort Worth.
"Up to now everything you hear about has been pretty expensive," he said. "They have a lot of experience in that market."
Struhs said several condo projects have been announced for downtown, but he doesn't believe they will all come to fruition, at least not in 2006. "Centex has brought something to the table that's credible and fills a dire need in the market," he said.
Demand is high for downtown condos, Struhs said, as Fort Worth follows a nationwide movement toward the inner-city. "It's happened all over the country," Struhs said. "One thing we need to establish in downtown Fort Worth is traffic."
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