City Votes To Spend $51.7M On Former Dallas Morning News Campus
Dallas officials secured a piece of land seen as a key property in the planned $3.7B overhaul and expansion of the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center.
Dallas City Council on Wednesday approved the $51.7M purchase of more than 220K SF at the former campus of The Dallas Morning News from developer Ray Washburne.
The 13-2 vote ends a back-and-forth battle between the developer and the city, and it clears the way for Washburne to move forward with building an entertainment district on the front part of the property, the Dallas Business Journal reported.
That development, which Washburne compared to San Antonio’s Pearl District, is expected to include a 200-key hotel and 100K SF of restaurants and entertainment attractions.
He told the DMN that he plans to invest “at least $150M” in the project. The developer expects the district could be completed in 2029, which is when the convention center expansion is also slated to wrap up.
The convention center renovation and expansion project broke ground last year and is aiming to turn the area into a walkable hub. Work to upgrade the facility to serve as the International Broadcast Center for the 2026 FIFA World Cup is scheduled to start in July. That will be followed by demolition of a portion of the center to make way for the facility's expansion.
Washburne bought the former DMN facility for $28M in 2019 and has been outspoken about his desire to work with the city on redeveloping the property at 508 Young St.
But Washburne grew frustrated with a lack of communication from the city and announced he had reached an agreement to sell the property to an undisclosed data center provider earlier this year.
The convention center project is expected to revitalize an area of downtown that has been largely empty since the newspaper left the 546K SF property in 2017, and the addition of a data center didn’t fit into city plans. Officials have had numerous discussions about the former DMN property during executive sessions since Washburne said he was selling the land.
Mayor Eric Johnson and Council Member Cara Mendelsohn voted against the purchase, though there was no discussion on the item before the vote.
The site isn’t the only DMN-related property to trade hands in recent weeks.
The newspaper's parent company, DallasNews Corp., completed the sale of its Plano printing facility for $43.5M last month. The 620K SF facility was sold to Denago EV, which plans to turn the 29-acre site at 3900 W. Plano Parkway into the Southern hub for its electric golf cart line.
Preston Capital Realty’s Lina Chen and Paladin Partners’ Greg Nelson represented the purchaser, the parent company of Denago EV. Foundry Commercial’s Marty Neilon and Holt Lunsford Commercial’s Josh Barnes represented the seller.
