Dallas Plan Debuts to Bridge Gap for 6M-SF Development Op

The project officially got off the ground yesterday at a press conference announcing the launch of a public-private partnership spearheaded by Texas Capital Bank. It is being seeded with $1-million donations from the bank, its chairman Jody Grant and his wife, Sheila, and the Real Estate Council Foundation and $500,000 from Crescent Real Estate Equities Co., the team that masterminded the plan.

The cost is still being fine-tuned, but preliminary estimates run from $45 million to $60 million, Linda Owen, TREC's president, tells GlobeSt.com. The tentative plan calls for a 2007 groundbreaking and 2010 delivery.

The plan has been brewing nearly two years, but it's just been in the past six months that it's gained momentum. John Zogg Jr., Crescent's managing director of asset management and leasing in Dallas, says he got a cold call from Grant, who said he'd heard about the plan and was willing to plant the $2-million seed "without seeing the plans or our vision."

Zogg says the Crescent idea took root at a meeting with John Goff, vice chairman and CEO, and Dennis Alberts, president and CFO, in an upper-bank conference room in Trammell Crow Center at 2001 Ross Ave. After seeing how other cities tackled major downtown changes, they glanced across the streetscape and started to discuss the feasibility of marrying Uptown to Downtown and eliminating a freeway barrier labeled yesterday as a "concrete moat." Within 18 months, Zogg was presenting the idea to "put a lid on the freeway" to TREC, which had been looking to donate $1 million to a legacy project.

"Crescent saw this project as a bold move for our region to change our landscape so our city will sell," Zogg says. "Dallas has phenomenal assets and they're all sitting around Woodall Rodgers and a big moat." Crescent is donating proceeds from condo sales at the Residences at Ritz-Carlton Dallas, which are rising beside the REIT's mixed-use landmark in Uptown.

"We're not done, but we've made a large step toward getting this project done," says Zogg, who's turned over the project's reins to Grant. "He understands how public-private partnerships work. He understands how to bring the teams together to make these things happen." Grant was the moving force to get Interstate 30 relocated to improve traffic flow around Fort Worth.

Before a jam-packed room of Dallas/Fort Worth's most influential people, Grant said a renowned designer will be hired, but public input will be sought as well "so it truly will be a park for the people." The Office of James Burnett, a landscape architect and planner based in Houston, did the preliminary design. Grant will chair the Woodall Rodgers Foundation, which has a "blue ribbon" board of directors as the cornerstone.

"Today we are pledging to do something quite magical," Mayor Laura Miller said during the project's public debut. "This is our Millennium Park. When people come to this park, they're going to think about Uptown and Downtown all as one."

With a downtown revitalization under way, the park will create a direct connect to the tony amenities of Uptown and the Arts District, further strengthening the city's bid to become a 24-hour destination city with cosmopolitan appeal. "Woodall Rodgers Park will be the gateway to Downtown," Grant says. The bank's fiscal support, he says, is "just our way of saying thanks for what you've given to us."

The foundation hopes to raise $20 million to $25 million, according to Owen. The park's cost will be equally divided among the city, private donations and other public funding sources. The foundation is structuring a 501 (c)(3) for donations.