Since Granite Properties acquired the historic building at 603 Munger Ave in the West End in 2015, the developer has been renovating the former cracker and candy factory into a mixed-use project with 215k SF of creative office space, two (or possibly more) restaurants, a coffee shop and retail space. Granite plans to deliver the project in May, and we took an early tour.

GFF and Architexas are the project architects. Construction crew DPR will remove some elevators to allow for a five-story atrium (rendered at right) with rustic and reclaimed finishes. Because the $73M project is registered on both the Texas Historic Commission and the National Registry of Historic Places, Factory Six03 will have about $16M in historic funding.

Insurance giant Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas will lease 32k SF on the sixth and seventh floors for an innovation center. Blue Cross will have three types of employees there: design thinkers, service and delivery personnel, and clinicians. BCBS president of enterprise national accounts Kevin Cassidy said he hopes to improve the quality, and decrease the cost, of healthcare by mixing these three types of employees in a collaborative office environment.

The roof (pictured) will have a conference room and tenant workspace. A 20k SF plaza on the first floor shared with Dallas Alley will be reinvented by landscape architect Mesa (whose office actually looks down to the plaza from the Oilwell Supply Building).

BCBS is the only office tenant Granite has inked so far. Granite director of leasing Robert Jimenez said rents at the property are a bit of a discount to Uptown and run on par with many CBD rents at $30/SF triple net for office space and a bit more for retail.

Granite development manager Aaron Bidne told us that while Factory Six03 is Granite's first stab at historic redevelopment, it will likely not be its last. "Historic redevelopment makes sense as an investment, but it's hard to estimate costs and timing," he said. Granite was one of the first developers to bet on the West End, but Bidne said he's pleased to see other investors putting money into the district.