Beck Ventures Acquires 1.6M-SF Valley View Center from LNR

DALLAS-Local commercial real estate investment company Beck Ventures acquired the 1.6-million-square-foot Valley View Center from LNR Partners, with an eye toward redesigning and redeveloping the current troubled retail center into a mixed-use project dubbed Dallas Midtown. The $2 billion project calls for retail, hotels, high-rise office buildings and luxury residential towers.

Beck Ventures, known for acquiring suburban Trophy Club out of bankruptcy and redeveloping it into a work/live/play community, has experience in revitalizing troubled commercial real estate projects and assets. However, a report in the Dallas Morning News points out that dirt work and construction on Dallas Midtown isn't going to happen immediately or any time soon. Sears, one of Valley View Center's anchor tenants is staying put for now. Furthermore, the center at Interstate 635 and Montfort Road is a little more than 50% occupied.

Adding to the issue is that, Interstate 635 is undergoing a $2.7 billion construction conversion into managed toll lanes; a process that will create traffic congestion along the route for at least three years.  Furthermore, the article notes, the Becks need to bring other area stakeholders in to develop a master plan for the entire area, rather than the 60 acres it just acquired.

Finally, it's uncertain how the Becks will pay for this redevelopment. The Dallas Morning News article points out that the Becks will ask the city to help pay for it, but how that will happen is still an uncertainty.

When Valley View Center opened in 1973, it was one of the area's important retail destinations in North Dallas.  However, growing competition from the nearby Galleria and later on Willow Bend Mall in Plano, TX eroded Valley View Center's viability as a shopping destination and many major tenants decamped or ended up in bankruptcy. In 2010, then-owner Macerich Co. handed the keys to the center to LNR when it was unable to make the payment on a $125 million note.