3001 Maple Ave.
GlobeSt.com EXCLUSIVE: JV Details $50M-Plus Redevelopment Plan
By Connie Gore
Last updated: November 16, 2005 08:25am
http://www.globest.com/news/415_415/.../140249-1.html
DALLAS-After a year of due diligence, High Street Residential, a Trammell Crow Co. subsidiary, has come up with a $50-million-plus plan to renovate the 80-year-old Maple Terrace Apartments into condos and add a 16-story residential tower and eight townhouses to the 3.35-acre landmark property in Uptown.
High Street and JER Partners, the McLean, VA-based division of JE Robert Cos., acquired the 80-unit Maple Terrace Apartments at 3001 Maple Ave. at the end of the third quarter from Dallas-based Circa Capital Inc. With the deal now done, the developer has scheduled sales to begin in March. Prices have yet to be firmed up, but the best guess is they will run from $300 per sf to $350 per sf, a price point not commonly found among the upscale rental and condo stock in Uptown and Turtle Creek. "We feel like we will be at a good price point," says Harry Lake, TCC's development manager. "It's a good value that's not currently being met in the market."
Lake tells GlobeSt.com that construction will begin next summer, possibly early fall, for the renovation as well as the new tower, which will have 11 stories of condos atop five floors of parking to replace surface spaces. The development group has mapped out 53 condos for the existing 80-unit building, 162 condos in the tower and eight two-story townhouses--all positioned around an Italianesque courtyard. Units will begin delivering a year after construction starts.
Lake says Maple Terrace's occupancy historically hovered 80%, but as word got out about the plan "people starting getting on the list so they could have a position in line." The existing tenants, some there more than 50 years, get first dibs on the condos and moving assistance plus a place to stay during construction. Given the demand, he says it's highly likely the project could sell out before the one- and two-bedroom units come on line.
Rhonda St. James, the Maple Terrace sales manager for Chicago-based Garrison Partners Inc., says negotiations are under way with apartment properties in the area and moving companies to make the move-outs as easy as possible on tenants. All existing leases will be honored, she stresses. Only "two or three" apartments are vacant.
Lake says the redevelopment will cost at least $50 million and could push $100 million. By gaming out a condo plan, the development group is able to save the landmark building although it would have been cheaper to raze it. "We wanted to find a way to save the building," he explains. "It's worth spending the extra money to keep it. We're preserving a lot of the character."
High Street Residential is led by Art Lomenick, one of the region's most formidable luxury multifamily property developers. RTKL Associates Inc.'s Dallas office did the landscape design. WDG Habib Architecture Inc. of Washington, DC, which has a local office, has crafted the redevelopment design.