Click images to view full size One Arts Plaza Dallas, Texas Project Type: Mixed Use—Three Uses or More Volume 38 Number 09 April–June 2008 Case Number: C038009 PROJECT TYPE When the 7-Eleven corporation announced it was leaving downtown Dallas for the suburbs, municipal leaders and the private development community moved to create a plan to keep it in the city. The result was One Arts Plaza, the first high rise constructed downtown in more than 18 years. The mixed- use structure contains 498,000 square feet (46,266 sq m) of office space, 61 luxury condominiums, 1,161 parking spaces, and a restaurant row for the neighborhood that features five local eateries. The Billingsley Company’s $158 million, 24-story building is located in the city’s Arts District, a master- planned area comprising performance halls and museums. LOCATION Central Business District SITE SIZE 4.03 acres/1.63 hectares LAND USES Office Buildings, Condominiums, Restaurants, Retail KEYWORDS/SPECIAL FEATURES Central City Downtown Housing Infill Development PROJECT COMMERCIAL ADDRESS 1722 Routh Street Dallas, Texas PROJECT RESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 1717 Arts Plaza Dallas, Texas WEB SITE www.oneartsplaza.com DEVELOPER Billingsley Company Carrollton, Texas 972-820-2200 www.billingsleyco.com ARCHITECT Corgan Associates Dallas, Texas 214-748-2000 www.corgan.com DESIGN ARCHITECT Morrison Seifert Murphy Dallas, Texas 214-635-1013 www.msmgroup.com GENERAL CONTRACTOR Balfour Beatty Construction Dallas, Texas 214-468-4700 www.balfourbeattyus.com GENERAL DESCRIPTION One Arts Plaza (One Arts) is the first phase of a three-part mixed-use project that is intended to anchor the east end of downtown Dallas, Texas. It is located in the city’s Arts District, a master-planned area that is home to several performance halls and museums. The 24-story structure contains 27,000 square feet (2,508 sq m) of restaurants and other retail space on the ground floor, 498,000 square feet (46,266 sq m) of office space, 61 luxury condominiums on the top seven floors, and 1,161 parking spaces. One Arts was developed by Billingsley Company (Billingsley), an organization founded by former Trammell Crow employees Henry Billingsley and his wife, Lucy Billingsley, the daughter of Trammell Crow. A long-term “hold” developer, the firm develops and manages retail, office, multifamily, industrial, and townhouse products in the Dallas region. Billingsley Company is a land developer that buys land in anticipation of future growth. THE ARTS DISTRICT One Arts is located on a 4.03-acre (1.63-ha) site in the Arts District in downtown Dallas. The Dallas/Fort Worth Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) contains 12 counties and 6.1 million people, making it the fourth-largest MSA in the country. Downtown Dallas is bound by Interstates 35, 30, and 34 and the Woodall Rogers Freeway (Texas Route 366). The Arts District lies at the north end of downtown and is bordered by Route 366, St. Paul Street, Ross Avenue, and One Arts. Now home to Dallas’s Arts District, the area once was an African American neighborhood, and its heritage is evident today. The district’s Booker T. Washington School was originally a black high school, and St. Paul United Methodist Church, a historic African American church, has been there since 1873. The internationally acclaimed Black Dance Theater calls the neighborhood’s YMCA building home. By the 1960s, the area had fallen into a state of disrepair, the African American community had left, and for the next several decades auto dealerships and empty lots occupied much of the land. In 1978, a report commissioned by the Dallas Museum of Art proposed creating an arts district by relocating the city’s symphony, opera, and art museum to the area. The plan proposed locating the institutions along a 0.3-mile-long (0.18-km-long) stretch of Flora Street, less than one mile (1.6 km) from the heart of downtown. The report sparked a 25-year political and civic effort to execute the plan. Located at opposite ends of Flora Street, the Dallas Museum of Art and One Arts bracket the Arts District. Major arts institutions line the pedestrian-friendly boulevard between these two landmarks. They include the Meyerson Symphony Center, the Trammell & Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art, the Nasher Sculpture Center, and the $338 million Dallas Center for the Performing Arts. As of July 2008, a new campus for the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts is under construction. It is a nationally recognized arts magnet school whose alumni include recording artists Norah Jones and Erykah Badu. Also under construction is the City Performance Hall, the final institutional facility planned for the Arts District. The Art District skyline is defined by buildings designed by four Pritzker Prize winners—I.M. Pei, Renzo Piano, Norman Foster, and Rem Koolhaas. DEVELOPMENT PROCESS When it was purchased by Trammell Crow during the early 1980s, the site was mostly vacant except for a few minor buildings. Downtown office development has stopped short of the Arts District. The first high rise constructed in downtown in over 18 years, One Arts is situated on 4.03 acres (1.63 ha) of a ten-acre (4.05-ha) site controlled by Billingsley. Plans have been drafted for a Two Arts and Three Arts, but both of these additional phases are dependent on the market and anchor tenants. Since 1927, 7-Eleven’s corporate offices have been located in Dallas. The company built its own headquarters for 900 employees at Cityplace Center in 1989, roughly three miles (4.8 km) north of downtown. In 2004, 7-Eleven sold the building and executed a three-year lease, planning to move to a suburban office location in 2007. Dallas’s mayor at the time, Laura Miller, turned to Billingsley to help keep the company’s headquarters within Dallas. While the city could offer tax benefits, it turned to Billingsley for a suitable headquarters location. Securing 7-Eleven’s headquarters as a major office tenant made One Arts Plaza financially possible. Billingsley’s site was sufficiently deep and wide to accommodate a building with 38,000-square-foot (3,530-sq-m) floor plates. The convenience store company sought large contiguous office space—usually available only at suburban sites—for greater efficiency. One Arts’ custom design allows for suburban office efficiencies in an urban environment. A second important consideration for 7-Eleven was timing: with its lease due in 2007, on-time delivery of the building was critical. Since Billingsley already controlled the land and the city supported the project, the only major risk to timing would be the construction process. Planning for One Arts started in December 2004 and construction was underway six months later. As of July 2008, the project is complete except for three restaurants, which are leased and expect to open in six to eight months. FINANCING The total development cost for One Arts was approximately $159 million: $11 million for land, $4 million in site improvements, $114 million in hard costs, and $30 million in soft costs and additional fees. Guaranty Bank and Wachovia provided 80 percent of the construction financing, or $130 million at LIBOR (London Interbank Offered Rate) plus 135 basis points. The developer contributed $29 million in equity—$18 million in cash and $11 million in land value—because the site had significantly increased in value since the early 1980s, when it was purchased. The construction financing was segregated between funds for the office and commercial uses and the residential condos. Project financing was facilitated by the 7-Eleven office lease and the city contract to lease parking spaces. One Arts was financed without preselling any residential units. DESIGN Because of the project’s location, the design was a challenge for the development team. The site sits at the head of the Arts District, home to bold institutional buildings designed by celebrity architects. One Arts’ design would have to fit in with that of these neighbors and follow a 1982 master plan for the area, all within a tight time frame. While most surrounding buildings were developed by nonprofit entities with donations or tax dollars, One Arts needed to make an architectural statement on a private sector budget. Billingsley tapped locally based Morrison Seifert Murphy—the first Texas architecture firm to play a role in shaping the Arts District—for the task. The team’s solution proposed the creation of a white tower with clean lines, carefully articulated to break the mass. The double-height lobby and residential balconies are centered on Flora Street, the Arts District’s major axis, although the entire building is located slightly off center from this street. The residential unit balconies form a six- story cube punctuating the facade of the upper floors. Highlighted with white LED lights, the cube appears to be floating above downtown at night. The deep floor plates that the office tenants desired caused a problem for the condominiums on the upper levels. In order to avoid deep but narrow condo units, the facade was stepped back at the residential levels. The spaces created operate as outdoor “rooms,” complete with fireplaces. The interiors of the units follow the exterior’s minimalist design. The ground floor contains a formal lobby for office users, retail and restaurant space, a public plaza, and a 7- Eleven flagship convenience store. The office entrance and residential entrance are on opposite sides of the building, but are connected through an internal corridor. The office lobby showcases a large, 20-foot-tall (6.1-m- tall) sculpture and multimedia artwork displayed on a wall of digital screens.