Downtown News
Dallas City Council approves major subsidy for new West End Lofts
805 Elm St. in the West End.
The Dallas City Council approved a $49 million incentive package for the development of the West End Lofts Project, a proposed mixed-use, mixed-income, and transit-oriented development project.
The project would take up three parcels within the historic West End: 805 Elm St., 711 Elm St., and 211 N. Austin St., directly south of the West End DART light rail station and directly north of El Centro (Dallas College).
Led by Sycamore Strategies, LLC, the estimated $103.2 million project will include 154 mixed-income apartments comprised of 56 efficiencies, 25 one-bedroom, 69 two-bedroom, and 4 three-bedroom units to be constructed within the historic 805 Elm Street building and in a new 6-story building to be constructed on the existing adjacent surface parking lot.
Of the 154 apartments, 63 (41 percent) will be income-restricted and leased solely to households earning at or below median income.
The project will include residential amenities, ground floor retail/commercial space, the creation of an approximately 25,751-square-foot plaza and promenade, and approximately 140 parking spaces in the historic 711 Elm Street parking garage.
The project’s funding includes $54,224,085 in non-City sources, including equity in the form of low income housing tax credits and historic rehabilitation tax credits.
The City’s incentive package includes an amount not to exceed $28,275,676 in City Center TIF District funding as well as up to $20,724,324 from other economic development funding sources administered by the City’s Office of Economic Development, including general obligation bond proceeds from the economic development/housing propositions in the City’s 2012 and 2024 bond programs.
In a statement, Interim City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert said that the project will provide affordable housing and ground floor activation within downtown’s West End Historic District.
Prior to the City Council's December 11 approval of a subsidy for the project, it got a thumbs up from the City Center TIF District Board of Directors, with the added condition that best efforts be made to provide a minimum of two square feet per residential unit for pet relief facilities.
