Las Colinas to get a taste of Uptown
Gables to develop 13-acre, mixed-use site in Urban Center
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10:58 AM CST on Wednesday, January 11, 2006
By STEVE BROWN / The Dallas Morning News
Gables Residential, the busiest apartment builder in central Dallas, is going to take a little bit of Uptown to Irving.
Gables has purchased about 13 acres in the center of Las Colinas, where it plans to build a high-density mixed-use project. The lakeside development will include hundreds of apartments, a shopping center and a future condo tower and hotel.
The development site is in the Las Colinas Urban Center on O'Connor Boulevard east of State Highway 114. It is directly across the street from Las Colinas' landmark bronze mustangs sculpture.
"It's across from Williams Square and on the water," Gables senior vice president Doug Chesnut said Monday. "It's a great piece of real estate."
Gables purchased the property from the Las Colinas Land LP in a deal negotiated by Cousins Properties. The sale was one of the last made by Cousins before Houston developer Hines took ownership of the remaining vacant land in Las Colinas at the end of 2005.
It will take almost a year to plan and engineer.
"We will do it in multiple phases," Mr. Chesnut said. "We can make this the heart of the Urban Center."
Early concepts call for almost 800 apartments with more than 200,000 square feet of retail space on the lower floors.
With more than 1,000 apartment units under construction in Las Colinas, the addition of an Uptown-style retail center should boost rental demand in the neighborhood, said Dallas apartment analyst Mike Puls.
"Walking to nearby retail is a great advantage for apartments," he said.
And Gables has experience with mixed-use development. It is part of the next phase of Dallas' Cityplace project.
The two Gables projects are located across the street from the West Village and include apartments above ground-level stores.
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stevebrown@dallasnews.com
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