http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/070805dnbusoaklawn.8470f188.html
Big makeover in Oak Lawn
Sleepy spot is waking up
08:14 AM CDT on Friday, July 8, 2005
By STEVE BROWN / The Dallas Morning News
A sleepy corner of Oak Lawn is the latest central Dallas neighborhood to get an extreme makeover.
MONA REEDER/DMN
Urban Lofts is working on a 28-townhome complex. 'They've sold like hotcakes,' said Danny Davis, who's marketing it. Developers drawn by cheaper land and proximity to Uptown are rolling into the area of old homes and apartments between Cedar Springs Road and Maple Avenue just east of the Dallas North Tollway.
They're knocking down whole blocks for apartments and townhomes and remodeling old rental units into condos.
"It was inevitable that this area would start to be sought after by developers," said Dallas real estate agent David Griffin. "Most of Oak Lawn has already been combed over.
"And since land is more affordable over there, it enables developers to offer product that is more affordable."
BETSY BOCK/Staff Artist Mr. Griffin said the roughly 24-block neighborhood just north of Oak Lawn Avenue is starting to resemble the one east of Cedar Springs. "Five years ago, the area between Lemmon and Cedar Springs was also considered iffy because there were a lot of rundown properties," he said. Now there has been lots of condo and townhouse construction there.
It's not a question of if but how quickly the southwest Oak Lawn neighborhood will be renewed, developers say.
"This pocket is really the last area east of the tollroad that hasn't been redeveloped," said Nicholas Chapman of Alliance Communities. "We believe in it and think there is a lot of momentum."
Phoenix-based Alliance Communities has demolished an entire block of old apartments and homes at Shelby Avenue and Brown Street to make way for its new project. The 230-unit apartment complex will have four stories of rental units surrounding a parking garage. The development is scheduled for completion next summer.
"We are going to be able to rent units at 85 percent of what rents are in Uptown and along Turtle Creek," Mr. Chapman said. The average 900-square-foot apartment will go for about $1,260 a month.
More and more
Alliance is already planning a second, larger apartment complex in the same neighborhood. At Wycliff and Dickason avenues next to the tollway, the developer has bought almost four acres where it plans to build a 300-unit apartment community starting this fall.
"One of those buildings will be four stories of apartments over two levels of parking and another will be three stories over parking," Mr. Chapman said. "We've been working on that project about a year."
In the meantime, demand is surging, he said.
"A little bit of a land rush has started," Mr. Chapman said. "You are seeing some of the townhome builders coming in and tying up sites. There is a lot of fragmented ownership, and it's hard to assemble land."
Some existing apartment buildings are also getting facelifts.
The Waterford Square condominium complex under construction at Congress Avenue and Knight Street is a redo of a 116-unit apartment community built in the 1960s.
"When we are done, we'll have 68 units," said J. Stotle Baird, who's been working on the project since last year. "We've had a bunch of interest. It was a little rough when we started and didn't have a lot to show."
But as development progresses, the project has attracted more interest from potential buyers, Mr. Baird said.
One-bedroom condos start at about $102,000, and two-bedrooms at just under $122,000. The units will average about 1,000 square feet.
"We combined a lot of the small units to make larger condos," Mr. Baird said. The first units will be available later this year.
About to flip
Waterford Square and the Alliance Communities complex at Shelby and Brown will help anchor the redevelopment of the neighborhood, Mr. Baird said. "It's helping to get things moving. Once you get entire blocks redeveloped like that, it will flip over pretty fast," he said.
Just down Knight Street from Waterford Square, Houston developer Urban Lofts is building the second phase of a townhome complex.
All but a handful of the 28 units in the project have been sold at prices starting at around $215,000 for about 1,800 square feet.
"They've sold like hotcakes," said Danny Davis, who's marketing the project and said he sold 14 units in February. "I'm selling to architects, lawyers and professionals."
So far, he says, the patchy neighborhood hasn't put off any buyers, and Urban Lofts is looking at other redevelopment sites nearby.
"The neighborhood is going to change overnight."
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