When a hole opens, it's a big hole.
But the expanding excavations just north of downtown Dallas will not match the new record-breaking construction sites of the 1980s.
Construction on Goldman Sachs' $500 million office campus on Field Street next to Victory Park began in October.
Before developers can build the 800,000-square-foot North End high-rise complex, they will need to dig a hole to accommodate underground parking with more than 2,000 spaces.
“I don't know if there's a record for the largest hole in Uptown, but this hole is 4.5 acres and 75 feet deep,” said Colin Fitzgibbons, president of property owner Hunt Realty Investments. Ta. “It would take a full two years to go down a level and go up a level.
“We're going to be digging that hole for the better part of next year.”
The new building is scheduled to open in 2027.
Fitzgibbons said excavation of the block will continue into next summer, removing 441,000 cubic yards of soil.
“At peak times, we get 4,000 trucks a day,” he said. “It all ends up in the landfill.”
In fact, when it comes to Dallas' biggest excavation project, the North End development falls short.
That milestone dates back to the Uptown Crescent development, which was built in the mid-1980s. To build parking garages for his four buildings at Maple Avenue and Cedar Springs Road, construction crews dug down his entire 10-acre property to 60 feet above street level. They removed more than 950,000 cubic yards of dirt and rock.
To celebrate the project's “bottoming out,” Crescent developers pitched a tent at the bottom of the pit and held a cocktail party.
Some of the big holes that developers have dug in this area end up causing a lot of problems.
In 1967, when construction began on the One Main Place skyscraper in downtown Dallas, an entire block of Elm Street collapsed overnight. It took seven months to resolve the mess, dubbed “The Cave on Elm Street.”
Bumper stickers and T-shirts were printed to celebrate the unexpected road collapse.
When the 1980s real estate boom collapsed, it left a 90-foot-deep hole at the corner of Lemon and Cole streets in Uptown.
A $150 million, 20-story luxury skyscraper with a hotel, athletic club, and spa was planned for the block. However, the project failed, leaving behind a crumbling excavation site.
The city ultimately closed Cole's hole after neighbors complained of stagnant water in the hole and there were very real fears that the road would drop into a giant cavern. had to pay $1.2 million to fill the gap.
Frisco has struggled in recent years with an abandoned excavation on the Dallas North Tollway.
The five-story deep hole, larger than a football field, was left behind when the $2 billion Wade Park development fell through.
The new owners of the 175-acre former Wade Park site say it will cost more than $150 million to fill the giant pit with underground parking for a new development called The Mix.
