Downtown News

Owners of Dallas' Reunion Tower plan to develop long-vacant land nearby

Reunion Arena

RadicalBender at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0

More than 15 years after Reunion Arena in downtown Dallas closed, the owners of the surrounding property are plotting a massive development on the land.

Hunt Realty Investments, which owns Reunion Tower and more than 20 acres surrounding it, tells the DMN in a subscription-only story that it's planning to build a dozen new high-rises, with apartments, offices, retail, a convention hotel with 600 to 1,000 rooms, and a park.

Phase one will comprise hotel, retail, dining, and entertainment. The project will include up to 3,000 apartments, some of which they say will be set aside as "affordable" workforce housing for nurses, firemen, and such.

They also have aspirations to redevelop Union Station, a train stop for DART, the TRE, and Amtrak which opened in 1916.

Reunion Arena was razed in 2009. Hunt has owned the property since the '70s and let it sit vacant all that time, despite offers from others willing to develop it.

"I cannot tell you how many inquiries we have received to buy 2 acres or buy this or that," Hunt Investment Holdings CEO Chris Kleinert says to the DMN. “We’ve heard more than once, you guys haven’t done anything down there in decades. ... We think the timing is right with what’s happening at the convention center."

They say they've brought the city millions, with the Reunion development contributing $350 million in taxes to local governments, and predicting millions more over the next 20 years.

"Hunt has owned that land for 50 years," says Hunt Realty Investments president Colin Fitzgibbons. "They waited patiently for something to come around to accelerate redevelopment, and here comes the convention center."

The project would join other convention-center-profiteering developments in the area such as the former Dallas Morning News building being redeveloped by Ray Washburne.

Construction on the new convention center is supposed to start next year and be complete by 2028. A deck park connected to the convention center and extending over I-30 is scheduled to open by 2030.

Other Hunt Realty projects include the NorthEnd project on Field Street north of Woodall Rodgers Freeway consisting of an office campus for Goldman Sachs, high-rise residences, a hotel, and retail; and the Fields development in Frisco with 10,000 homes and apartments, commercial districts, and the Universal theme park, being built around the PGA headquarters and golf resort.

downtown openings

Tax Hike

Texans saddled with 7th highest property taxes in nation for 2026

Photo by Ronnie George on Unsplash

The Texas property tax burden keeps going up.

Property taxes can be a particularly sore subject for homeowners, and a new study has revealed Texans are saddled with the seventh-highest property taxes in the nation.

WalletHub's annual report, "Property Taxes by State," released February 17, found Texas homeowners will pay a median $4,232 in property taxes in 2026. That's based on the state's median home value of $283,800.

Last year, Texans were on the hook for a $4,111 property tax bill based on a median home value of $260,400. And Texas residents are expected to pay $360 more on their property taxes this year than in 2024, when the figure was $3,872.

To determine which states have the biggest and lowest property tax burdens on residents, WalletHub's experts divided each state's median real estate tax payment by its respective median home price. The report then used the resulting rates to extrapolate the annual real estate tax that would be paid on a house valued at $332,700, which was the median value for a U.S. home as of 2024 (the year where the latest data was available). All 50 states and the District of Columbia were analyzed.

Texas tied with Nebraska as No. 44 in the national ranking of states with the highest property tax burdens for residents right now. Both states have an effective tax rate of 1.49 percent, the data said.

Still, the property tax burden in Texas isn't as punishing as New Jersey (No. 51), whose residents are shelling out almost $9,600 on their property taxes this year based on a median home value of $454,400. On the opposite end, Hawaii is the state with the lowest property taxes, with residents spending about $2,239 based on a median home value of $839,100.

The annual property taxes Texans would pay on a $332,700 home (the 2024 U.S. median home value) added up to $4,961, the report said. For added context, the U.S. Census Bureau found the average American household pays $3,119 annually on property taxes.

Of course, property taxes vary by region, and residents living in Dallas County are familiar with enduring tax hikes. Dallas renters are also affected by rising property taxes despite not owning their homes, WalletHub said.

"While property taxes may seem irrelevant to the 35 percent of households that rent, that assumption misses the mark," the report said. "Whether paid directly or indirectly, nearly everyone bears the cost of property taxes, as they influence rental prices and help fund state and local governments."

According to Walltethub, the top 10 states with the lowest property taxes for 2026 are:

No. 1 – Hawaii
No. 2 – Alabama
No. 3 – Nevada
No. 4 – Arizona, Colorado, and South Carolina (tied)
No. 7 – Idaho
No. 8 – Delaware and Tennessee (tied)
No. 10 – Utah

real estate property taxes texas wallethub reports