RICHARDSON, TX-With the land deal set to close in the summer, Legacy Partners Residential Development Inc. has unveiled a $34-million plan to develop 278 units in a mixed-use mid-rise at the doorstep to the light-rail station in Galaytn Park. The news ends a four-year wait for a residential developer to take the lead in the city's 500-acre centerpiece.
Spencer Stuart Jr., senior vice president and Texas partner for the Foster City, CA-based Legacy, has sealed the deal after seven months of talks with the Hunt family, city officials and Galatyn Park Corp., the land's caretaker. Designed by Humphreys & Partners Architects LP in Dallas, the four-story "Venue" will include about 7,000 sf of street-level retail and a four-story parking garage.
In sync with the Venue's construction is a plan to extend Plaza Drive to Galatyn Parkway, opening up another eight acres for high-density development in front of a Dallas Area Rapid Transit station. The street bisects a $5-million plaza flanked by mid-rise office buildings, a hotel and the Charles W. Eisemann Center for Performing Arts and events.
"What we hope to do is continue this partnership and try to do other projects within Galatyn Park as this one becomes successful," Stuart tells GlobeSt.com. Galatyn Park's land bank, supported by two light-rail stations, has 450 untapped acres, including additional tracts for residential build-out.
About a dozen transit-oriented developments have sprung up around DART stations in recent years. Another dozen developments, plus or minus, are on the drawing board, with plans well under way in Farmers Branch and Carrollton, says Doug Allen, DART's executive vice president. "They're learning from Richardson," he says.
Stuart says it's uncertain at this time if the Venue will be held long term or sold after it's stabilized. Also to be determined is whether or not to outsource retail leasing. The retail space is earmarked for restaurants and boutique-type shops. As for the units, they will start to deliver about 14 months into the 18-month construction cycle, according to Stuart. The one- and two-bedroom rental units will average 950 sf, with a projected average rent of $1.30 per sf.
The two-year-old events center was the last ground-up construction in the plaza, but there's been some retooling of surrounding office space since the Calabasas, CA-based Countrywide Financial Corp. came to town in late 2004 with a plan for a $200-million campus seeded by 496,480 sf of existing space, an option on another 282,000-sf structure and 16.7 acres primed for development. "Countrywide moving in here has really created momentum," says Donald A. Dillard, vice president of the Galatyn Park Corp.
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