The news that developers are getting ready to market 80 acres near Walnut Hill Lane and North Central Expressway are to potential buyers can't be good news for the proposed Lake Highlands Town Center.
Dallas' Only Daily Newspaper reports that the project, called Urban Village at Walnut Hill, is zoned for zoned for 3,800 apartments, condos and townhouses, 90,000 square feet of retail and 930,000 square feet of office space. It's also along the DART line. Sound familiar?
A couple of other things to keep in mind: This project is just three miles or so from the Town Center, which means their retail market areas will overlap. Also, the developers have what looks to be an 18-month head start on the Town Center developers. Finally, this appears to be a spec development, just like the Town Center. I don't know that I've seen two spec projects of this size in the same area at the same time.
Uh oooohhhhhh....
And the new Movie Grill will be just north of that too, at Royal and 75. Seems like LHTC is in for a world of woe now. I hope things work out for them.
This all reminds me of a post Rick made a few months back, about real estate owners stealing tenants from other sites, which begets more enticing, and yada yada. Could we be in the midst of our own "retail bubble" here in NE Dallas?
Posted by: Bill Kennedy | September 21, 2007 at 09:21 AM
Let's look at the numbers: Urban Village promises 90,000 sq ft of retail. LHTC: 250,000 to 3000,000 sq ft of retail.
Urban Village: 3,800 apartment units
LHTC: 1,000 residential units
Looks to me like Urban Village is much more apartment-oriented than retail. Basically, they're just replacing old apartments with new ones. LHTC is a true retail-oriented project with the advantage of being in an existing neighborhood that is starved for quality retail.
Urban Village has the advantage of being closer to Central Expressway and Greenville Ave., which I think would appeal to more young renters. I have my doubts about LHTC ever being appealing to urban hipsters, the type who live in the West Village. But as a retail entity, I wouldn't wave the white flag for LH Town Center just yet.
I wouldn't be overconfident about it, either.
Posted by: Triple Wildcat | September 23, 2007 at 03:21 PM
Whoops! Forgot about that 930,000 sq ft of office space for Urban Village at Walnut Hill. Again, it just seems like this project is mostly about building a newer version of what's already available at Walnut Hill - office space, apartments and some retail. LHTC is bringing something completely new to an untapped area. At least that's what I'll be telling myself as I continue to keep my fingers crossed about the Town Center.
Posted by: Triple Wildcat | September 23, 2007 at 03:26 PM
Is this the same project formerly under the name of Valencia development? Last time I checked they were trying to find a suitable name, and perhaps Urban Village is what they settled on. Or is the Valencia development something else further north?
Posted by: Keri Mitchell | September 24, 2007 at 09:36 AM
Yes, the same project and the same people, Valencia.
Posted by: Jeff Siegel | September 24, 2007 at 10:49 AM