Riding the rails

Full speed ahead: 2020 set as target date for 205 MPH bullet train betweenDallas and Houston

The 250-mile trip between Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston made in 90 minutes or less? Texas Central High-Speed Railway leaders say it's possible, without public financing and within the next eight years.

And they exuded confidence about it at a high-speed rail forum in Irving on Tuesday, reports the Associated Press.

"We are not the traditional state-run railroad," said Robert Eckels, president of Texas Central High-Speed Railway and former Harris County judge. "This is designed to be a profitable high-speed rail system that will serve the people of these two great cities and in between and, ultimately, the whole state of Texas."

Tracks would go over, under or around car and pedestrian traffic to take advantage of the bullet trains' 205-mile-per-hour capabilities.

If this all sounds familiar, that's because it is: Talks of the quick trans-Texas trip have been underway since 2010, when Central Japan Railway Company (JR Central) rallied for part of an $8 billion federal grant that President Barack Obama set aside for high-speed rail corridors.

That effort failed, but JR Central has teamed up with the Texas-based company to raise roughly $10 billion in private dollars for the DFW-to-Houston route. Eckels believes federal involvement slows the process and piles on expenses and claimed that private money would be repaid by riders' fares, which would be "competitive and, in many cases, less than airfares."

Tracks would go over, under or around car and pedestrian traffic to take advantage of the bullet train's 205-mile-per-hour capabilities and would stop in College Station — and perhaps a few other locations between North Texas and Houston — for minimal interruptions.

Although no timeline has been announced for phase one, Eckels said that a second phase of the project would link Austin and San Antonio to the system along the I-35 corridor.

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Coworking News

New coworking space to open in Dallas' Oak Lawn neighborhood

Office Evolution

A coworking space is opening in Dallas in a central location: Office Evolution, a Louisville-based coworking chain, will open what a release says is a "state-of-the-art coworking space" at 3500 Oak Lawn Ave. #360 in Dallas at the southeast corner of Lemmon Avenue.

No details on what makes it state-of-the-art, but construction is ongoing and an opening is anticipated in mid-October.

Office Evolution was founded in 2003 as a shared workspace-coworking environment, cultivated on the principles of "Ohana," the Hawaiian tradition that references family working toward a common goal. (The founder was from Hawaii.)

The company started out in Boulder, Colorado, then relocated its headquarters to Louisville. It's an affiliated brand of United Franchise Group, and is part of The Vast Coworking Group, which specializes in franchising within the coworking industry. All of their locations are franchised.

The Dallas location is owned by franchisee Michael Pickering, a Dallas native who runs a family-owned indoor soccer facility in Dallas. (There are two other Office Evolution locations in the DFW area in McKinney and Southlake, owned by different franchisees.)

They're describing the Dallas location at 3500 Oak Lawn Ave. as "Turtle Creek," although its location at Oak Lawn and Lemmon really puts it at the epicenter of Oak Lawn. (To further complicate matters, the building previously and incorrectly described its address as "Uptown.")

It's a seven-story building in which the majority of tenants are doctor and medical offices.

Office Evolution rates include a coworking day pass for $25, plus "flex" office options starting at $200 a month for 20 hours, up to $550 a month for 80 hours.

Amenities of the building that are also accessible to Office Evolution customers include a front desk; a 1,000-square-foot fitness center; covered parking; and on-site security six days a week.

According to a spokesperson, Pickering and his team put $1.2 million into the renovation to transform the space, which occupies most of the fourth floor where it will span 9,240 square feet of space with 41 total offices — one of which is earmarked as an "on-demand office" for the professional on the go.

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