Is Dallas' core infill being overlooked?

[Dallaz]

I am not claiming that Dallas has the densest core or the tallest buildings, but I do want to discuss the progress taking place within the city. This is just one part of the core, will discuss other areas later.

This is the only pic that I have that shows the entire high-rise/skyscraper core of Dallas. It really shows how close together all these areas are. This is what you see when crossing the Sylvan Ave Bridge, Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge or coming anywhere from the west. Coming from the south on I-35E or I-45, you cannot see everything since the skyscrapers in downtown basically creates a wall and blocks the view. Looking from from the South to North is the traditional skyline view that anyone who have seen a pic of Dallas' skyline are familiar with and is a reason why people think nothing has been built or changed. I like to think of the infill as 3 high-rise clusters. Red circle on pic is North Uptown (West village) / Cityplace - with Texas' only subway and streetcar station, Blue Circle - Turtle Creek/Oak Lawn, and the Green Circle - southern part of Uptown, Victory Park, and the Harwood District. This is where the vast majority of the high-rise development is taking place within Dallas. The picture quality isn’t the greatest (and it’s thousands of feet in the air), but it does show the high-rise infill and density that’s being built...even with height restrictions from Love Field.

Skyline from the west

From the Sylvan Ave Bridge over the Trinity River on Google Streeview

Looking toward downtown from the West on the Hampton Rd Bridge over I-30, just outside of downtown




Bank of America Tower at Parkside Uptown (450 ft) - U/C
Blue Circle - Four Seasons Turtle Creek (464 ft) - planned




Clear pic without circles



From Feb 2024

A monster boom is taking shape in Dallas’ Uptown and Turtle Creek areas
Twenty major real estate developments are underway or proposed near Dallas’ Uptown and Turtle Creek areas.

The area north of downtown Dallas that includes Uptown, Victory Park and Turtle Creek is seeing an unprecedented building boom.

More than $2 billion in buildings are on the way in almost two dozen major projects. Some of the largest developments include major employment centers for Goldman Sachs and Bank of America.

At the same time, developers are working on high-rise residential buildings for both renters and buyers.

19 high-rise projects listed in the article (some with multiple high-rise towers) and one mid-rise apartment project with retail.

[Dallaz]

Originally Posted by Dallaz

I am not claiming that Dallas has the densest core or the tallest buildings, but I do want to discuss the progress taking place within the city. This is just one part of the core, will discuss other areas later.

This is the only pic that I have that shows the entire high-rise/skyscraper core of Dallas. It really shows how close together all these areas are. This is what you see when crossing the Sylvan Ave Bridge, Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge or coming anywhere from the west. Coming from the south on I-35E or I-45, you cannot see everything since the skyscrapers in downtown basically creates a wall and blocks the view. Looking from from the South to North is the traditional skyline view that anyone who have seen a pic of Dallas' skyline are familiar with and is a reason why people think nothing has been built or changed. I like to think of the infill as 3 high-rise clusters. Red circle on pic is North Uptown (West village) / Cityplace - with Texas' only subway and streetcar station, Blue Circle - Turtle Creek/Oak Lawn, and the Green Circle - southern part of Uptown, Victory Park, and the Harwood District. This is where the vast majority of the high-rise development is taking place within Dallas. The picture quality isn’t the greatest (and it’s thousands of feet in the air), but it does show the high-rise infill and density that’s being built...even with height restrictions from Love Field.

Skyline from the west

From the Sylvan Ave Bridge over the Trinity River on Google Streeview

Looking toward downtown from the West on the Hampton Rd Bridge over I-30, just outside of downtown




Bank of America Tower at Parkside Uptown (450 ft) - U/C
Blue Circle - Four Seasons Turtle Creek (464 ft) - planned




Clear pic without circles



From Feb 2024

A monster boom is taking shape in Dallas’ Uptown and Turtle Creek areas
Twenty major real estate developments are underway or proposed near Dallas’ Uptown and Turtle Creek areas.



19 high-rise projects listed in the article (some with multiple high-rise towers) and one mid-rise apartment project with retail.

This is the correct list that corresponds with the pics with the circles. I can't edit the words on the previous post or the whole post disappears, including the pics. Some weird glitch or something is happening.

I picked one development for each circle

Red circle - The Central - a $2.5 billion high-rise mixed-use development (I am not sure if y'all can see it clearly, but the high-rise adjacent to Cityplace Tower is the first tower in the development. It has topped out and you can kinda see the streets they've built too) - U/C - Link: https://youtu.be/JuR82lIqFy8?feature=shared
Green Circle - Bank of America Tower at Parkside Uptown (450 ft) - U/C
Blue Circle - Four Seasons Turtle Creek (464 ft) - planned

[AviationGuy]

I spotted all this infill from the plane on takeoff from Love Field last time I was there. I haven't driven around yet, but would like to next time I'm in Dallas. Looks good.

[llamaorama]

Uptown Dallas is much more urban than Houston's uptown/galleria area, but it doesn't have the careful sidewalk-level progressive urban planning of somewhere like Denver's Union Station or Seattle's South Lake Union. I've stayed in and walked around those areas on trips for work and there are the little things that are hard to quantify, but it's so different from Texas in those places.

Uptown Dallas has got a lot of big shiny buildings which do have occupied ground-floor retail including full-size chain grocery stores, etc, and then there are areas off the major streets like State-Thomas that are quiet but residentially dense. But it also does feel chaotic and there's a lot of car traffic, and less attention to detail with sidewalks or small parklets, etc.

It kind of reminds me of the time I walked around the new parts of downtown Austin (by the old power plant and that building that looks like a big sail), except Austin has taller buildings. Maybe it's comparable to a much less built up Midtown Atlanta or Buckhead? I'm embarassed to say I've never actually been to Atlanta, I just know Midtown Atlanta exists because of SSP and Google Earth.

[Dallaz]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

Uptown Dallas is much more urban than Houston's uptown/galleria area, but it doesn't have the careful sidewalk-level progressive urban planning of somewhere like Denver's Union Station or Seattle's South Lake Union. I've stayed in and walked around those areas on trips for work and there are the little things that are hard to quantify, but it's so different from Texas in those places.

Uptown Dallas has got a lot of big shiny buildings which do have occupied ground-floor retail including full-size chain grocery stores, etc, and then there are areas off the major streets like State-Thomas that are quiet but residentially dense. But it also does feel chaotic and there's a lot of car traffic, and less attention to detail with sidewalks or small parklets, etc.

It kind of reminds me of the time I walked around the new parts of downtown Austin (by the old power plant and that building that looks like a big sail), except Austin has taller buildings. Maybe it's comparable to a much less built up Midtown Atlanta or Buckhead? I'm embarassed to say I've never actually been to Atlanta, I just know Midtown Atlanta exists because of SSP and Google Earth.

Fun Fact: State-Thomas is pretty much a gentrified former freedman's town. It was like that in the 80s, the portion with the detached homes is the historic portion that still remains. Met some very nice (loaded) people in those restored homes.

Uptown is still relatively new and still a work in progress. I am excited about the McKinney-Cole Aves two way conversion project from Uptown to Knox-Henderson (another fast growing part of town). The project will include pocket parks at reconstructed intersections, starting at Oak Grove Avenue. There's also a plan in the very early stages that will redo McKinnon St and Harry Hines Blvd in the area too.

Video with extremely brief overview with renderings McKinney-Cole Ave (time stamp - 22:00) and Harry Hines Blvd/McKinnon St (times stamp - 24:10)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiuFcEVgX_I&t=1745s

The closest answer to me would be Midtown Atlanta. I do agree that Midtown is more ahead, since it started before Uptown did. But Uptown started off in the early 90s as a mixed-use neighborhood, being heavier on the residential aspect. Now, the area is attracting a number of companies because they find it to be a fairly attractive place for young professionals. According to wikipedia, Uptown has an area covering 0.9 sq mi and a 2014 population of 19,979. In 2014, half (or more) of Uptown's high-rises didn't exist.

Also, Klyde Warren Park is about to expanded, along with a few other new deck parks within the city. The expansion is expected to spark even more growth in the Uptown/Downtown area.

[Crawford]

Dallas doesn't really have extensive core infill; it has massive North side infill. In the other directionals, there's very little.

And the Dallas CBD might be the weakest for a metro of its size in the Western world. It has struggled, for decades, with extremely high vacancies.

[Dallaz]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Dallas doesn't really have extensive core infill; it has massive North side infill. In the other directionals, there's very little.

And the Dallas CBD might be the weakest for a metro of its size in the Western world. It has struggled, for decades, with extremely high vacancies.

Disagree. The 80s crash is a major reason for this. A lot of the office space became vacant after the 80s crash. All the banks that built the office space failed. Now, those buildings are being converted because they’re obsolete. Dallas is one of the top cities in the nation for office conversions. New projects are proposed to help with that, like the new convention center project and a few other projects that have stalled because of high interest rates. Deep Ellum is infilling and so is the Design District, Old East Dallas, Knox-Henderson, North Oak Cliff (Bishop Arts District). I will show all those areas in the next post.

[Altoic]

I think Dallas's development definitely isn't overlooked but the scale of the development is. It seems like every month a new tower is released or breaking ground. The towers also look really high quality from what I've seen. They aren't like the common towers I've seen with low quality podiums and no retail.
A bit off topic, but what's the plan with I-345? Have they decided to demolish it or bury it?

[badrunner]

No it's not being overlooked.

Dallas is usually on top or near the top of the list for multifamily construction. It gets talked about on here (and then summarily dismissed by the urban snobs ).

[DCReid]

Originally Posted by Dallaz

Disagree. The 80s crash is a major reason for this. A lot of the office space became vacant after the 80s crash. All the banks that built the office space failed. Now, those buildings are being converted because they’re obsolete. Dallas is one of the top cities in the nation for office conversions. New projects are proposed to help with that, like the new convention center project and a few other projects that have stalled because of high interest rates. Deep Ellum is infilling and so is the Design District, Old East Dallas, Knox-Henderson, North Oak Cliff (Bishop Arts District). I will show all those areas in the next post.

Houston fared worse than Dallas, especially since its economy was much more energy related (I read somewhere that it was 80%+ dependent on oil in the early 80s). Yet, Houston has built downtown towers, both office and residential. It seems that downtown Dallas has been a poor competitor to the suburban sprawl of the area, for both offices and residential. In the 80s and 90s, I was reading about the growth in Plano, several miles away, and now the news is all about the growth a further several miles in Frisco. But perhaps, it's possible one day downtown Dallas may burst in new construction and development like downtown Los Angeles has.

[New York to Dallas]

why is there no Dallas update thread or page?

[llamaorama]

Another thought is that Fort Worth exists and has a downtown. Dallas-Fort Worth combined is larger than Houston, but Houston is much larger than just Dallas by itself. For regional office headquarters during the peak era of Texas or Southern CBD's from the 1920s to the 1960s, Fort Worth would have been getting at least some of the action that Dallas would have had if it was the only urban center.

My other theory is that Houston's oil industry had a suit-and-tie culture, with the notable oil companies all having headquarters in big skyscrapers, in proximity to banks and law firms .

Dallas-Fort Worth grew big in the 1950s off the aviation, defense and electronics industries where its more common that the big bosses and engineers work out of offices attached directly to the plant or airfield in a giant complex. Los Angeles (Long Beach aerospace facilities) and Detroit (Big 3 suburban HQ + automotive tech complexes) were the same way. This kicked off an early trend towards suburban office campuses - like Texas Instruments plant and labs and HQ in North Dallas/Richardson, Consolidated Aircraft and Bell Helicopter in the mid-cities region even before there were suburbs surrounding them, Southwest Airlines and American Airlines having corporate campuses mixed with their plane hangars and stuff at Love Field and DFW airport, respectively.

DFW has a ton of office towers, and Downtown Dallas used to be called the Manhattan of the Southwest for a while, but I think with changes in the economy that sort of fizzled out. But it was never an issue as the city as a whole has been a hot streak for the past 70 years regardless.

[C.]

Originally Posted by badrunner

No it's not being overlooked.

Dallas is usually on top or near the top of the list for multifamily construction. It gets talked about on here (and then summarily dismissed by the urban snobs ).

Dallas is a beast. But so is Houston.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by New York to Dallas

why is there no Dallas update thread or page?

https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7647

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

Another thought is that Fort Worth exists and has a downtown. Dallas-Fort Worth combined is larger than Houston, but Houston is much larger than just Dallas by itself.

Yep. And for anyone who thinks the two cities are roughly equal, from the council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat:



https://www.skyscrapercenter.com/cities

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

Uptown Dallas is much more urban than Houston's uptown/galleria area,

Uptown Dallas has the benefit of sharing the adjacent downtown street grid while Houston's "Uptown" grew out of a 1960s suburban street plan. "Uptown" Houston is improving, but it's still a mess.

[dktshb]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

Uptown Dallas is much more urban than Houston's uptown/galleria area, but it doesn't have the careful sidewalk-level progressive urban planning of somewhere like Denver's Union Station or Seattle's South Lake Union. I've stayed in and walked around those areas on trips for work and there are the little things that are hard to quantify, but it's so different from Texas in those places.

Yeah, they did such a great job with the neighborhood behind Denver's Union Station, which used to be acres of rail yards 20 years ago. Tall buildings do not always mean urban:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/haY9PkoisFCJLiEu7
https://maps.app.goo.gl/h2cJZmu3jFZGF8Wu8
https://maps.app.goo.gl/GRMtTvSckPkrE8RR6
https://maps.app.goo.gl/dFZwhDiYR9Pe5MSm6
https://maps.app.goo.gl/LjsD2xVSNjRkMQg5A

[Dallaz]

I may just post one area at a time. Don't want to make very lengthy posts.

This is Oak Cliff, just directly south of Downtown from the Trinity River. Oak Cliff is like a city within Dallas and it is broken up into sections. This section of Oak Cliff is North Oak Cliff - the original section, a former independent city and streetcar suburb. North Oak Cliff has its own neighborhoods, this is a picture (slightly old now) of Jefferson Blvd in the foreground with Bishop Arts in the middle and Downtown in the background. The mid-rises in the distance is part of the redevelopment going on in Bishop Arts. The city has completely rezoned this area over a decade ago now, to allow for dense urban mixed-use development. The city has upgraded the major streets by converting some back to two way or doing a "complete streets" reconstruction. The red arrow is Bishop Ave. That's one of the streets that was reconstructed to connect Bishop Arts with Jefferson Blvd. Both Jefferson Blvd and Bishop Arts are historic streetcar nodes that developed when Dallas had streetcars. Bishop Arts was the busiest streetcar stop in Dallas. The Black Box behind that new apartment midrise is the planned location of another apartment midrise. The blue box is the phase two location of a mixed use development, that's adjacent to it. The goal is for this area to become a single dense walkable neighborhood. Much of the original housing stock was demolished overtime after white flight during the late 60s and 70s. Common to most inner city areas, they all declined as people moved to the suburbs or newly developed suburban areas within the city. The city also added a streetcar line in North Oak Cliff and it stops at Bishop Arts expansion on Zang Blvd.



Clean pic



The revitalized streetcar nodes are being used as a way to create a complete urban neighborhood. They're extending these nodes further and adding apartments and ground floor retail. Here's one project Victor Prosper Phase II -- Renderings of the project -- Pictures showing it nearing completion on Instagram. New development started here in this area started less than 10 years ago.

In this video taken less than a week ago during Bishop Arts' downtime, it’s cool seeing development popping up along the streetcar line starting at 4:00 to 7:00. Still a lot of infill needed on the remaining empty lots, but progress nonetheless. TBH this is what gentrification in Dallas looks like. You can see the façade in the Instagram pic in Bishop Arts at 7:15 (and the streetcar stop). At 12:45, you can see the Madison Ave and 7th St side, which will have restaurant space on the ground floor. I guess interest rates are the reason it is taking the phase two of the adjacent development at 15:00 so long to start. Those parking lots and older red roof apartments suppose to mirror what’s built next to it (that's what I mentioned as the blue box in the first pic), extending Bishop Arts closer to Jefferson Blvd (which are separated about 4 blocks). Bishop Arts ends at 17:36. Right next to that apartment building on the left at 17:36, HEB plans to build an urban Central Market store with apartments. Oak Cliff ends around 20:20 and you can see all the new 5 over 1s built on Beckley Avenue just south of 30, before North Oak Cliff transitions into West Dallas.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5CZrVSMUKY

This is more of a driving tour of Oak Cliff, which features all of Jefferson Blvd (3:00-6:08), Davis St (8:40-12:00), and Bishop Arts (12:00-14:10 shown during the summer when it's poppin') -- all of those former streetcar nodes, with Jefferson Blvd being the "old Downtown Oak Cliff" -- a 10 block (1 mile long) commercial district. Also, you can see the historic Texas Theater where Lee Harvey Oswald was taken into custody. This area is in transition. The city is trying to build on the momentum that's happening in the area with the new Oak Cliff deck park nearby that will be completed by 2026 (Link to the story about the deck park: https://youtu.be/Z6kMYR_vecI?si=5mknYUMqaQJ86lK7). It will connect North Oak Cliff and the Dallas Zoo in East Oak Cliff over I-35E. Developers have already bought up land around the Deck Park. I have heard rumors that the streetcar will eventually connect to the Deck Park. The Oak Cliff Streetcar is planned to be connected to the McKinney Avenue Trolley in Uptown Dallas with a downtown central streetcar link. I would say it will take another 10+ years to really connect all of these nodes together that exists in this one area. The city already has the zoning in place to make it happen. The city and neighborhood wants additional residential density, to support the businesses on Jefferson.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfIE2oQmaLY&t=762s

Now this is just a kinda a fun fact type of thing

Jefferson Blvd and Zang Blvd - 1956 with streetcars



Jefferson Blvd and Zang Blvd - 1957 after streetcars removed



Video of Jefferson Blvd in 1971 during integration. More healthy overall here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p98vo1Sf4Nk

[benp]

Originally Posted by dktshb

Yeah, they did such a great job with the neighborhood behind Denver's Union Station, which used to be acres of rail yards 20 years ago. Tall buildings do not always mean urban:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/haY9PkoisFCJLiEu7
https://maps.app.goo.gl/h2cJZmu3jFZGF8Wu8
https://maps.app.goo.gl/GRMtTvSckPkrE8RR6
https://maps.app.goo.gl/dFZwhDiYR9Pe5MSm6
https://maps.app.goo.gl/LjsD2xVSNjRkMQg5A

Imagine if instead of the parking alongside Post Oak in Houston that it was a walkable esplanade. That alone could be a huge leap to make it a great urban area, instead it's strip mall parking lots with big buildings nearby.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/tXhWecHUg4kaWxCd7

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by benp

Imagine if instead of the parking alongside Post Oak in Houston that it was a walkable esplanade. That alone could be a huge leap to make it a great urban area, instead it's strip mall parking lots with big buildings nearby.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/tXhWecHUg4kaWxCd7

Most of those strip malls (and their parking lots) have been there for decades. My expectation is that they will be replaced sooner or later with more dense development. The sidewalks along Post Oak, even in front of the parking lots, have already been expanded as prologue to new development.

Now imagine if everything in "Uptown" had been built in Midtown, instead.