23-acre mixed-use development underway in North Dallas

Dive Brief:

A 23-acre development in far North Dallas will include two office towers totaling up to 1 million square feet, retail space and cinema, among other uses, replacing a shuttered Sears department store, reports Dallas News.
Part of the 430-acre midtown district on the north side of the LBJ freeway, the development is an effort between developer KDC and Seritage Growth Properties.
A recent revamp of the LBJ freeway prompted new office build in an area that has not seen significant commercial construction growth in about 30 years. Nearly 300,000 cars travel by the site each day, making it a prime location.

Dive Insight:

The Sears closure is just one in a string of store and mall closures across the nation in recent years, and analysts estimate up to 25% of the remaining malls could close within the next five years. As more of these massive sites close, developers must figure out what to do with the vacant space. Developing lifestyle centers, living spaces, distribution or fulfillment facilities or mixed-use spaces, or simply tearing the malls down to start with a blank slate, are among the options.

Dallas’ new mixed-use plan illustrates both the re-purposing of an old store or mall and strong office growth. Dodge Data & Analytics predicted 2017 would be a big year for construction, with 110 million square feet more built than in 2016, making office construction the strongest commercial segment of the year. That strong growth is expected to continue into 2018.

Mixed-use projects are underway all across the country. For example, Los Angeles is prepping for a 64-story mixed-use skyscraper to break ground as early as 2019, and developers in Boston are working on a 45-acre development that will include science and tech campuses, office buildings, a park and condominiums. Developer North American Properties, meanwhile, is undergoing one of New Jersey’s biggest brownfield remediations to convert the 415-acre site into a mixed-use development.

Developer KDC is keeping busy in the Dallas area as it tackles a proposed smart district, another mixed-use complex that would feature the city’s tallest building. And as Amazon considers applications for its HQ2, developers offered this smart district as a candidate because of its estimated 50,000-worker capacity and ready access to the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.