$60M Mixed-Use Project Ready to Break Ground

In a three-phase build-out, the Harbor will dock 225,000 sf of lifestyle retail, 20,000 sf of office space and a 200-plus room Hilton Hotel and Conference Center at the water's edge and within eyeshot of Interstate 30 to create a one-of-a-kind development in North Texas. Cinemark Inc., headquartered in Plano, TX, signed a long-term lease for 39,081 sf after negotiating for a year to anchor the 121,000-sf first phase, says Mike Geisler with Venture Commercial Real Estate LLC in Dallas.

Rob Whittle, president of Whittle Development, tells GlobeSt.com that the theater lease is a safeguard against retail foot traffic dropping off during the winter when the lake goes quiet. "It allows us to be a 12-month success story," he says. Cinemark shares the anchor limelight with Hilton.

Whittle says pre-leasing has hit 70,000 sf, a solid start for a 121,000-sf first phase for retailers and restaurants and second-floor office space. None of the leased space has been reserved by retailers, but the developer's confident they will come as the project pushes out of the ground. The first phase will deliver in second quarter 2005.

Whittle and his wife, Sara, have worked the plan for three years alongside city officials, who got a precedent-breaking ground lease with county and federal agencies to develop a $14-million, seven-acre park and boardwalk at the water's edge. The Whittles' land abuts the city's, setting up a fully blended design for the public and private projects. "There's not another site like it in North Texas," Geisler says. "And, there's not another retail center around on a lake."

Whittle bought the 31-acre tract in 1988. "It's amazing to find a piece of land along an interstate, on a lake and 20 minutes from downtown Dallas," he says. "A lot of things had to come together to make this happen ... the city's help, the growth in Rockwall and the interstate being widened across the lake."

Whittle is a well-known single-family lot developer, custom homebuilder and the craftsman behind the Buffalo Creek Country Club in Rockwall. "This is one of those projects that has become very personal. It's truly going to be a landmark," says a Rockwall resident with a lakefront home about two miles from the Harbor site.

The Harbor's second phase will add about 90,000 sf of retail. The third phase is the Hilton, with 15,000 sf of conference center space.

The Venture Commercial team of Geisler, Kenneth E. Reimer and Chris Gibbons are leasing the Harbor. Jay Jostrand of Graco Real Estate, with offices in McKinney and Lubbock, represented Cinemark at the bargaining table.

The behind-the-scenes design lineup, all Dallas firms, had O'Brien & Associates Inc. master planning the Harbor development; Jim Hewlett of Dallas-based IntegraService Group as the hotel architect; and TBG Partners in charge of landscape design. General contracting bids are under review and the winner will be announced at Friday's groundbreaking.