It’s only been a few years since Dallas-based commercial real estate developer Stream Realty secured a construction loan to build a 12-story office building and five restaurant buildings on four acres in Uptown Dallas.
A Dallas developer has begun construction on The Quad, a rebranding of the 1960s-built Quadrangle, in the first quarter of 2022, before speculative office projects become much harder to finance.
“We were able to weather the crisis at a time when the Uptown market was looking at a space shortage for the foreseeable future, and it turned out exactly as we expected,” said Ramsey March, executive managing director and partner at Stream.
The company has officially completed construction on its building at 2699 Howell St., which joins a smaller sister office building constructed on The Quad site in the 1980s.
The new office building spans more than 345,000 square feet and is clad in energy-efficient terra cotta, which was shipped from Germany and assembled by hand in Texas.
The office building will have a dedicated amenity floor at the top with a covered terrace and a fitness center on the first floor. The office floors will have ceiling heights of 13 and a half feet.
The lobby can be reached from Howell Street by walking between the restaurant buildings or via the underground parking garage and is centered around what Stream says is the largest indoor high-definition digital art installation in the state, featuring a roughly two-year library of content that changes throughout the day.
Stream assembled a Dallas team to help build the office building, with architect Omniplan leading the design and Austin Commercial as general contractor, and Facility Performance Associates consulting.
So far, the office has tenants including Oregon-based M Financial, Blackstone’s Leventage, Chicago Title and Berkshire Residential.
Stream’s Ryan Evanich and Marissa Parkin are leading the office leasing, while Rue Realty’s Jeremy Zidell is overseeing the retail leasing. Stream’s development team includes Brad Dornak, Jerry Mays, Blake Bell and March.
Restaurants like Bungalow, located on the corner of Routh and Howell streets, are expected to open in the coming months and into next year, with The Quad development set to feature seven dining concepts.
The building’s technology features include a mobile phone application for the elevators that allows you to program your preferences based on the time of day. Arrived at the office before 8am and want a coffee? It can take you to the lobby or amenity level. Stuck in traffic and arriving at 8:01am? The app can take you directly from the parking lot to your office floor.
Other features include an indicator that shows the number of parking spaces available on a particular floor, and the ability to track the whereabouts of colleagues to see how busy spaces are and how available meeting rooms are.
Another key aspect of Stream’s redevelopment of The Quad is the addition of lawns for both residents and the local community.
March said he saw neighbors playing football on the property over the weekend.
“This energy is going to be woven into the fabric of development for decades to come,” March said. “If people are going to leave their homes and come to the office, they need to feel like they’re going somewhere they want to go.”
“Placemaking has turned out exactly how we hoped it would,” he said.
The project’s concourse of restaurant buildings is expected to eventually flow into Lincoln’s planned mixed-use development, which will be built on four acres along Cedar Springs Road between Fairmount and Routh streets, south of Turtle Creek.
But this isn’t the only new office space opening in the Uptown neighborhood.
The expansion of Crow Holdings’ Old Parkland campus and the 26-storey 23 Springs development are some of the most imminent deliveries.
Financial institutions Bank of America and Goldman Sachs also plan to pursue new projects north of downtown.
Parkside Uptown, the future home of Bank of America at the corner of Harwood Street and Woodall Rogers Freeway, secured a $290 million construction loan earlier this year. The tower is scheduled to be completed in 2027.
The 800,000-square-foot, $500 million office campus, being built by Dallas-based Hunt Realty and Hillwood, will house thousands of Goldman Sachs employees and is scheduled to open in 2027.
