Illinois developer has plans to build 1,430 apartments in DFW
Dallas Business Journal | Candace Carlisle | June 6, 2016
Illinois-based real estate development firm Stoneleigh Cos. likes Dallas-Fort Worth a lot, with plans underway to build more than 1,400 luxury-grade apartments in Frisco, Carrollton and Fort Worth.
Developer Rick Cavenaugh is in the process of closing on two land sites in Fort Worth and Carrollton, with plans to get underway on construction of a new four-story apartment community in Frisco, just east of Toyota Stadium, by this summer.
In all, Stoneleigh Companies LLC plans to get underway on 1,430 apartments in the three different apartment communities, which will be developed over the next few years.
“Seventy percent of our business is in Texas for Stoneleigh Cos., and Dallas is our largest concentration of projects,” Cavenaugh told the Dallas Business Journal. ”That’s because Dallas is Dallas. It’s been the strongest growing market for the past 30 years. Dallas is an important city, and it’s been good to us.”
Cavenaugh, who has been developing in Dallas since the early 1980s, said he’s seen North Texas grow quite a bit over the years and his team is bullish on the continued growth in the city.
Stoneleigh’s decision to work on a number of new apartment projects comes on the heels of the developer topping out of a Class AAA luxury apartment tower in Uptown, called One Uptown, which will bring 198-apartments to the Dallas neighborhood.
The developer, in a joint venture with Dallas-based Realty Capital, is under contract to buy about 34 acres of land along the new Chisholm Trail Parkway in Fort Worth, south of Hulen Mall.
The land deal is slated to close in July, and Cavenaugh said he expects to begin construction on a three-phase, 600-unit apartment community in spring 2017. The venture is working with the City of Fort Worth to move power lines to accommodate the project.
Cavenaugh is in negotiations with an architect on the Fort Worth community, with a general contracting bid yet to go out.
The Carrollton land deal for 3.6 acres at the northeast corner of Belt Line Road and Interstate 35E adjacent to the DART station is also expected to close in July. The 230-unit apartment community, being called The Switchyard, is expected to get underway by the end of the year.
Houston-based EDI International is the project architect on the Carrollton apartment community. Stoneleigh Construction Co. will likely be the general contractor.
Meanwhile, Stoneleigh expects to get underway on 600 homes at the northeast corner of Main Street and Frisco Boulevard in Frisco next month. The initial phase on the 10-acre property will include 380 apartments. Next year, Stoneleigh plans to get underway on the remaining 220 apartments.
The initial homes in the four-story Frisco apartment community are slated for completion in February 2017.
The community, called Waterford at Frisco, will sit within the 32-acre Frisco Fresh Market development, which will bring a test kitchen row with up-and-coming food and chef-driven concepts to this part of the region.
Each of the apartment communities are considered luxury with high-end finishes, and is reflective of the growing North Texas market, Cavenaugh said.
“You have to go with high-end finishes, and developers really can’t afford to build affordable units — apartments priced at $1.10 and under — in this day as costs to build have gone up dramatically,” he told me. “Most of the apartments being built, unless there’s a tax credit, are geared to the luxury consumer.”
Without tax credits or public subsidies, Cavenaugh said the firm can’t attract investors to the projects and these communities can’t get off the ground.
“This is a real challenge nationally to be able to stimulate affordable housing and to make sense with the costs of delivering these buildings today,” he said.