The corner living room of Dallas' newest high-rise apartment overlooks much of downtown.
There's no indication that just 18 months ago, this luxurious living space was a vacant office suite.
The Peridot Apartments at Santander Tower are the latest generation of rental units carved out of surplus office space by developers. His nearly 2 million square feet of high-rise workspace in Dallas, much of which he built in the 1980s, is targeted to be converted into more than 1,500 units of new urban housing.
Dallas apartment builder Mintwood Real Estate partnered with Santander Tower owner Pacific Elm Properties to transform 11 floors of the Elm Street office tower into 228 apartments.
The first of the new rental units is ready to be shown to tenants.
Katie Slade of Mintwood Real Estate said: “We have a waiting list of prospective residents and a number of tours available.” “This is something very pioneering in terms of showing people what it's like to live in an office building, so we wanted to open offices and units for rent so people could understand.” We wanted to do our best to move forward.”
The 50-story skyscraper, built 40 years ago as the Thanksgiving Tower, has been owned by Woods Capital since 2013. Since acquiring the 1.4 million square foot office building, developer Jonas Woods (now CEO of Pacific Elm Properties) has added value to the tower. More than $18 million in renovations including a new lobby and outdoor space.
Two years ago, the top two floors of the skyscraper were converted into a 60-room hotel operated by Guild.
The construction of this apartment building is a further step in the owners' plans to repurpose the landmark skyscraper.
“They have a really great vision for how to make this tower a true mixed-use building,” Slade said.
Mintwood took up a large space on the west end of Santander Tower's ground floor to accommodate tenant lounge areas, a leasing and management center, and boardrooms. The lounge has a fireplace and a library-style common room.
“The space was empty,” Slade said. “It used to house a bank.”
Just outside the lounge's windows on Pacific Street, crews are putting the finishing touches on residents' pool and outdoor patio. There is a dog run on the east side.
WDG Architecture designed the conversion. Adolfson & Peterson was the general contractor.
Dallas-based Swoon designed the interior. “We hired them because of their hotel experience,” Slade said. “Our vision was to put this on the border between hotel and residential and be able to offer a high-end experience.”
The apartments begin on the 18th floor of the tower and are only accessible to building residents.
Rental units range in size from just over 600 square feet for the smallest one-bedroom apartments to more than 1,550 square feet for the largest two-bedroom units. Rent starts at $2,100 per month.
All apartments are equipped with high-end appliances in the kitchen and large bathroom.
Apartments only start up to the 18th floor, so renters sit high above the street.
“We paid close attention to the location of the surrounding buildings to avoid obscuring the view,” Slade said. “I love the view because you can look out over the city.”
The developer has added amenity areas on the 25th and 39th floors, so residents don't have to congregate in the lobby area all the time.
A storage room was installed in a part of the center of the apartment floor. “We also added a small office on his first floor along the hallway that people can rent,” Slade said.
Mintwood Real Estate hopes the Santander Tower office repurposing will help with its next project: 426 apartments in the 40-story Bryan Tower.
“Santander Tower is where we learn our lessons and sharpen our pencils for the next one,” Slade said. “We're doing things here that we haven't done in previous projects.”
With office vacancy rates nationwide at the highest level in more than 20 years, building owners are hoping to convert millions of square feet of excess office space into needed housing units. Commercial real estate firm CBRE Group is tracking about 100 office conversion projects with about 18 million square feet of space across the country this year.
Several office towers in downtown Dallas and Fort Worth are targeted for these redos.
Real estate analysts have warned that not all office buildings can be repurposed as housing due to the high cost and building layout.
“We can't do this in every building,” said Mintwood's Nick Bengas. “We don't want it to become so inefficient that it becomes meaningless.”
Approximately 78% of the average office floor in Santander Tower is used as leasable residential space.
“A typical multi-family building is between 80% and 85% efficient,” Slade says. “We've had a lot of people talk to us about converting office space into apartments.”
