Downtown News

Blue-paneled '50s office building in downtown Dallas to become residences

The 211 North Ervay building is a beautiful mid-century modern 1958 build.

Wolfe Investments

A distinctive '50s building in downtown Dallas has a new owner with big plans. The building is 211 North Ervay, notable for its pretty pale-blue paneled facade, and it's been acquired by Wolfe Investments, a real estate company headed by CEO Kenny Wolfe, with plans to transform it into residences.

Wolfe shared the news not in a press release that a person might ordinarily cut-and-paste then massage into a story, but instead via a YouTube video which is so very 2023, which he made from the rooftop deck.

"Hey guys, we're here at 211 N. Ervay, we just bought this property, as you can see we are right smack dab in downtown Dallas," Wolfe says. "It's going to be a beautiful asset. We're taking an office building and converting it to 238 residential units right here in the heart of Dallas."

The 238 units will include studios, one-bedroom/one-bath, and two-bedroom/two-bath floor plans with a contemporary aesthetic. Additional amenities will include fitness center and lobby lounge. They're anticipating completion in 14 to 16 months.

Built in 1958, 211 North Ervay is an incredibly cool 18-story cube with alternating panels of lighter and darker aquamarine outlined with original porcelain enamel steel panels between ribbon windows.

A profile on AIADallas.org recalls that color panel buildings were "all the rage" in the '50s. These panels were created by Texlite, the same Dallas company that built the Pegasus atop the Magnolia Building, as well as panels for The Statler, another iconic 1950s building just a few blocks away.

As Dallas Innovates notes, former Dallas Mayor Laura Miller called 211 North Ervay an "eyesore," definitely do not let her near your '50s house, and there were plans to demolish it and install yet another park.

The building was saved in 2012 by Alterra Worldwide, the investment company headed by Mukemmel "Mike'' Sarimsakci, most famous for almost building a Trump hotel in Dallas until the Trump Organization backed out.

The building was renovated in 2014, and has had some high-profile tenants on the ground floor including a 7-Eleven store and pre-pandemic, a location of Cafe Izmir.

Founded in 2012, Wolfe Investments has with nationwide holdings including commercial real estate, real estate development, and multifamily projects such as this.

In 2021, they purchased the also gorgeous historic Post Office building in downtown Dallas at 400 N. Ervay St., and in January, they acquired the Oil & Gas building next to the former Star-Telegram offices in downtown Fort Worth, in a partnership with Dallas’ Bluelofts Inc., which they will also convert to residences.

home-for-sale downtown

affordability news

Texans need to make nearly 6 figures to buy a home in 2025, per report

Photo by Kostiantyn Li on Unsplash

Texans that aren't making about $99,000 a year may have a tough time buying a home this year, the report discovered.

A recent report analyzing the minimum income it takes to buy a home across America has revealed Texans have it easier than residents of other states, but the dream may still feel unattainable for many.

Potential homebuyers need to make at least $99,000 to buy a home in Texas in 2025, according to the analysis from Realtor.com.

To determine the minimum income a local resident would need to make to buy a home in their own state, Realtor.com calculated each state's "affordability gap" by finding the difference in the actual annual income from the minimum recommended income to afford a median-priced home as of July 2025. The report also determined the percentage difference between the affordability gap figure and state's median actual income.

Texas joined 18 other states where the minimum income required to purchase a home is just under the six-figure range.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median household income in Texas is $75,780, which means the affordability gap for a potential Texas homebuyer adds up to more than $23,000. That also means that the minimum income required to buy a Texas home this year is roughly 30 percent higher than the state's actual median income.

Though the report didn't give any data on the median list price of a Texas home in July, Realtor.com said the median list price of a home in Dallas-Fort Worth was $439,900 last month. July's median list price was 2.2 percent lower year-over-year from July 2024.

"Even as the summer housing market is gradually turning more buyer-friendly, the typical American still does not earn enough to keep up with monthly mortgage payments without becoming house-poor," the report's author wrote. "However, the degree of unaffordability varies widely across states. Overall, it has moderately edged down compared with the end of last year."

Elsewhere in the U.S., Iowa is the No. 1 most affordable state for homebuyers in 2025, Realtor.com says, with residents needing to make at least $76,422 to afford a median-priced home in the state. The median list price for an Iowa home in July came out to $289,938, and the median income of an Iowa household is just under $76,000, making Iowa's affordability gap the smallest out of all 50 states at only $431.

"In other words, investing in a median-priced home in Iowa would require spending just a little over the target 30 percent on housing, still leaving plenty of cash in the bank to cover other necessities," the report said.

Realtor.com's top 10 most affordable states for homebuyers in 2025, plus the minimum income needed to afford a median-priced home, are:

No. 1 – Iowa ($76,422)
No. 2 – Illinois ($85,196)
No. 3 – Kansas ($74,030)
No. 4 – Ohio ($76,425)
No. 5 – Indiana ($81,565)
No. 6 – Pennsylvania ($85,662)
No. 7 – Missouri ($81,973)
No. 8 – West Virginia ($71,167)
No. 9 – Minnesota ($105,169)
No. 10 – Michigan ($83,542)

On the opposite end, Montana is the No. 1 least affordable state for homebuyers with an affordability gap surpassing $99,000. The median income of a Montana household is only $72,066 a year, and the median list price of a home in the state was $649,900 in July. The report then determined that a Montana resident would need to make more than $171,000 to afford that median-priced home.

"To put it differently, a would-be homebuyer in Montana would require a 138 percent raise to comfortably afford a home in the state at the current mortgage interest rate of 6.72 percent," the report said.

texas real estate housing market salaries income reports