Developers Pivot to Adapt and Collaborate on Projects

DALLAS—Harwood International’s new development, Harwood No. 14 in the 19-city block Harwood District, stands at 27 stories, the District’s tallest office tower. The project is slated to break ground this winter.

As with all of Harwood’s office buildings, the latest development will include amenities for tenants and expand on Harwood Hospitality Group’s restaurant, cafe and bar collection at the ground level. Harwood District’s portfolio includes nine restaurants and bars, 11 patios and cafe terraces for al fresco dining, and 8.5 acres of gardens. The tower’s design is heavily influenced by nature, featuring open-air pocket gardens and a 13,000-square-foot rooftop and sky garden complementing Harwood No. 10’s sky gardens across the street.

“The way we approach development for decades now has always been with an emphasis on gardens, open space and efficient workspace, and Harwood No. 14 will be no different,” Oliver Barbier-Mueller, managing partner, Harwood International, tells GlobeSt.com. “It will feature a two-story grand lobby, a 13,000-square-foot rooftop garden and a number of other amenities one would expect in a class-AA office building. In addition, we have launched a district-wide Harwood Cares program that each building incorporates.”

The latest lease agreement with Dallas’ largest law firm, Haynes and Boone LLP, will mark the initial lease at Harwood No. 14. Haynes and Boone will relocate to approximately 125,000 square feet in Harwood No. 14 in the fourth quarter of 2023. Haynes and Boone will be the seventh Am Law 100 firm within the Harwood District.

“This lease reflects our optimism in Haynes and Boone’s continued growth and that of the city of Dallas,” said Tim Powers, managing partner, Haynes and Boone. “Our new Dallas office will allow us to continue to attract and retain top talent, and deliver first-class legal services to our valued clients, with a design that focuses on maximizing efficiency and the rapidly evolving needs of an office environment.”

Andy Leatherman, Brooke Armstrong and Brad Selner of Jones Lang LaSalle negotiated the lease with John Lee, Hannah Waidmann and Kelly Whaley of Harwood International.

“We are proud to contribute to the continued successful growth of Dallas and proud to support our city’s economy,” said Oliver Barbier-Mueller. “We have always worked to develop experiential projects, parks and retail concepts that enhance our neighborhood and provide our tenants with an ideal environment within which to operate. Harwood No. 14 will embody these values.”

The high rise will feature a fitness center with locker rooms and showers, and a multi-purpose center that can be used for conferencing, catering and curated events. There will also be nine levels of parking and approximately 12,000 square feet for restaurants at the ground floor.

The design and architecture teams behind Harwood No. 14 are Dallas-based HDF (architect of record), Dallas-based Corgan (associate architect), and Tokyo-based architect Kengo Kuma and Associates (design architect).

This will be Kengo Kuma’s second office tower in the Harwood District. KKAA’s first tower, the Rolex Building completed in 2018, won the Best Office Project in the World by Engineering News-Record magazine and was featured in a 50-minute documentary by NHK World News.

“We have a 19-city block master plan for the Harwood District but it’s not fixed. We don’t know exactly what every single piece of land is going to turn into 30 years from now,” Oliver Barbier-Mueller tells GlobeSt.com. “However, we do generally know what types of developments we want to do. We’re constantly developing potential opportunities. With Harwood No. 14, we’ve known that we wanted to do a commercial office building on that site.”

There are currently 16 Harwood Hospitality Group restaurants, cafes and bars in various stages of design and construction, with three unique concepts slated this year across the street. The ground level experience of Harwood No. 14 will serve as an extension of Harwood No. 10’s La Rue Perdue.

“The Harwood District is 98% leased,” said Alexis Barbier-Mueller, managing partner, Harwood International. “Harwood No. 10, which was completed less than one year ago, is already 90% leased. We are launching Harwood No. 14 in response to the demand for office space within our District. We have developed approximately 5 million square feet to date, which aligns with the family’s vision of the 19-city block master plan.”

The Harwood District has earned one of the highest walk scores, enhanced with the newly opened direct connection to the 3.5-mile Katy Trail. Recent additions are Bleu Ciel, a 33-story condominium tower designed by Paris-based Jean-Michel Wilmotte and HDF, the new Rolex Building designed by Kengo Kuma and HDF, and Harwood No. 10 designed by HDF. In addition, Harwood International has just topped out on a new 22-story boutique hotel within the District.

Many of those accomplishments have been met within the challenges of the pandemic, but Harwood has pivoted in a number of ways, says Oliver Barbier-Mueller.

“Obviously things have changed pretty significantly on a global scale,” Barbier-Mueller tells GlobeSt.com. “The way we’ve gone about it is working really hard to leverage our partners and relationships and to try and adapt as quickly as possible. I don’t think collaboration has ever been more important. We’ve found that whether we’re working side-by-side or over the phone, we’re still able to accomplish a lot of what we were able to accomplish before. With our projects under construction, we’re fortunate that those have continued to move ahead.”

Despite the market conditions, the Dallas/Fort Worth market delivered 477,675 square feet of new product in the second quarter. Currently there are 4.7 million square feet in the pipeline to be completed during the next 24 months, according to Cushman & Wakefield’s MarketBeats.