Richardson Telecom Corridor Development Updates

[The_Overdog]

The spec office building on the corner of Renner & US 75 is going vertical. It's one of those office buildings where the concrete sides are constructed offsite and they just lift them into place, so it looks about as stable as a cardboard box. I believe it's supposed to be 5 stories of office with an 8 story garage next to it, some underground.

The apartment building on Glenville Drive and Galatyn Parkway is almost ready for siding - should probably be complete by mid-2017.

[The_Overdog]

Lot line stakes planted and soil sampling today for the pasture to the east of the Prairie Creek Villa apartments and between Alma and west of US75. Someone posted a masterplan to the old DFWU site -I think this is going to be attached homes or small lot condos or something like that. Will be a tight space and long development cycle as the only infrastructure right now is a bicycle trail. Crazy that this place, which is on the backside of apartment complexes, in the bosom of two big highways, and half floodplain for the creek has become potential development land.

[exelone31]

Wow, which side of the creek is that on? Things are getting gradually denser.

[The_Overdog]

The west side of the creek. The dog park on the service road is on the east side. Could really use a pedestrian bridge to improve the connectivity to that dog park and make it walking accessible to a large portion of Richardson.

As for density, once all this is complete, between the Hertitage Creekside stuff in Plano and the State Farm stuff in Richardson and all the apartments under construction in a small area, this area will go from being empty and abandoned to legitimately dense in about 5 years. Crazy! As a matter of fact, if it weren't for the massive space taken up by the highways, this would be on the list of the densest places in DFW.

[exelone31]

Nice! I know the Spring Creek Trail goes under 75, but is there an easy way to get from that to CityLine? It seems like a pedestrian bridge across Spring Creek on the east and west sides of 75 would be great.

[tamtagon]

^What a great ride this will eventually be.... Victory Park, Park Cities, M Streets White Rock Lake Highlands Richardson Plano!

[The_Overdog]

I know the Spring Creek Trail goes under 75, but is there an easy way to get from that to CityLine?

There is. A great wide sidewalk (well used to be great -all the construction has torn it up) connects this trail to both the Telecom Corridor to the south and to CityLine to the north, and there is a spiral access ramp along RouthCreek Parkway that is a shortcut. The Routh Creek tail connects to the Richardson Central Spine Trail passing through much of the developments near US75 all the way to Main Street. There are also plans to create a pedestrian bridge right next to US75 across the creek directly connecting the portion of CityLine along the 75 access road to the Spring Creek Trail. No idea the timeline.


Richardson has done a solid job building out N/S connectivity, but not such a good job on east/west.

Even with that, some additional pedestrian bridges would be nice because these trails create bikeable connections but not really walkable ones between the east and west sides near Central. The east west connections are probably a mile or more apart.

[The_Overdog]

They are doing some trenching in the riverbed to shore up the cliff on the north side of the Routh Creek development adjacent to the forest. No idea how to upload photos so I hope this link works.



https://www.dropbox.com/s/y2ciltztr24h4 ... M.jpg?dl=0

[joshua.dodd]

Where exactly is this where are they digging out the creek?

[The_Overdog]

It's on the east side of Routh Creek Parkway - Renner Road is the next block to the north. US75 is slightly to the west. I believe it's called Spring Creek Nature Preserve. They are building a huge apartment complex that goes from the Spring Creek nature preserve all the way south to the intersection where Blue Cross/Blue Shield towers are, just north of the Telecom Corridor.

[dch526]

Comeback of the Corridor: The Rousing Revival of Richardson

Richardson’s office vacancy rate, which was 9.5 percent in the first quarter of 2001, climbed to 25.9 percent by the fourth quarter of 2003. Telecom Corridor, the T-shaped business area in Richardson that U.S. 75 roughly bisects, lost as many as 30,000 jobs tied to the industry.

To diversify Central’s real estate beyond telecom, Richardson adopted techniques such as development tied to light rail stations, TIF districts, and an alternative to traditional zoning.

Although conventional zoning remains the rule for most Richardson development, the city now uses form-based codes in certain spots. “Each code is crafted uniquely for the area it regulates,” says Michael Spicer, the city’s director of development services.

The CityLine-related shift from old school zoning fostered mixed-use developments that use ideas for public transit and urban villages previously not found in Richardson, according to Bill Sproull, president and CEO of the REDP.

To help land a 1.1-million-square-foot chip factory that TI needed to build, then-Gov. Rick Perry in 2003 committed $300 million from the state Enterprise Fund to the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Texas at Dallas.

https://www.dallasinnovates.com/comeback-of-the-corridor-the-rousing-revival-of-richardson/

[The_Overdog]

They are doing some trenching in the riverbed to shore up the cliff on the north side of the Routh Creek development adjacent to the forest.

They are now building a gabion basket (rocks stuffed in chain-link fence steel baskets) wall by hand that is at least 100 feet long and more than 20 feet tall. About 20 construction guys filling the steel baskets with rocks by hand. The costs for the dirtwork on this complex alone must be staggering.

[tamtagon]

They are now building a gabion basket (rocks stuffed in chain-link fence steel baskets)....

!!!
I have wanted to that vocabulary lesson for 20 years!

[The_Overdog]

This building's giant garage now peeks over the tops of trees if viewing from Central Expressway. It was a mega concrete monolith, but is now being surrounded by steel and wood framed buildings. The insane wall in the creek is finally done too.

[The_Overdog]

Dirt is finally moving on the empty lot next to Richardson DART Galatyn Station and the creek has a construction fence around it. Not sure if that means a building is eminent or some utilities work is being done.

[The_Overdog]

The dirt is now placed but not graded. The city of Richardson has funded a contract to bury the creek in a storm-drain/concrete channel. I'd assume any building will be put on hold until that is complete.

[The_Overdog]

The WaterMark executive extended-stay 'apartments/hotel' has broken ground on the corner of Glenville and N Greenville Ave. I think they are building close to 200 units. In a few more years, the Telecom Corridor is going to be a sort-of neighborhood.

Also a 7 story triangular-ish hotel has been approved for the tiny sliver of land on E Lookout and the US75 access road, where only a celltower currently stands. I could have sworn it was totally vaporware but there was a truck doing soil samples so who knows? If built, the setback will be pretty close to 0 from the access road and past designs for expansion of the US75 service road showed cutting out a good portion of this land for extra car lanes. Guess those plans are on-hold.

[The_Overdog]

The city of Richardson has funded a contract to bury the creek in a storm-drain/concrete channel.

The creek is now almost fully channelized and partially buried. Should be done burying it in a couple of weeks.

[The_Overdog]

The creek next to the Galatyn Dart station is fully buried and the lot is now fenced for construction. Dirt moving vehicles are on site...moving dirt.

Behind this site, between the former BOA site (now Galatyn Commons) and the former Verizon facility, there is one of those traffic measuring strips. I'm not sure why they'd have one of those just to fill the empty office space with no zoning changes. So the two options are they might be installing a stoplight (currently a stop sign) on the corner of Glenville and Lookout (maybe for the new apartments but traffic is very light most of the time) or someone is looking to re-develop one of the properties on this corner. Or maybe they just want some traffic counts for a new tenant of the existing office buildings.

Third: dirt is moving for a mixed-use community of something like 600 apartments and some ground-floor retail on the corner of Custer and G Bush.

Fourth: Land was was previously zoned to be patio homes adjacent to US75 and Renner (and where the Cotton Belt spur will connect to the existing rail line) was rezoned to be a church, and construction is starting for the church parking lot and buildings.

[tamtagon]

...so weird to bury the creek here, but with the downtown improvement, the drainage ditch is turned into a conservation feature...

[The_Overdog]

...so weird to bury the creek here, but with the downtown improvement, the drainage ditch is turned into a conservation feature...

Agree. They should have moved it 20 feet to the west, directly adjacent to the sidewalk connecting to the station and it would have been a great amenity. Probably would have been cheaper too.

[jrd1964]

State Farm is adding more data center capacity in Richardson, with another building on part of the old Owens Spring Creek Farm site.

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/rea ... w-building

[The_Overdog]

The creek next to the Galatyn Dart station is fully buried and the lot is now fenced for construction. Dirt moving vehicles are on site...moving dirt.

They have now dug a large hole next to the concrete conduits which buried the creek and have finished putting in the city infrastructure like fire hydrants. A construction trailer and some equipment is on-site, but the crew so far is very small. Not sure if the dug out area is for some underground parking or for more buried infrastructure.

[exelone31]

^ Thanks for the update, Overdog!

[itsjrd1964]

Texas Instruments is proposing a new $3.2 billion manufacturing facility.

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/tex ... richardson

[The_Overdog]

For the site next to Galatyn DART rail station, it may have been mentioned before, but it's confirmed to be a 372 unit multifamily building. The lot is relatively small, maybe 2 acres, so if this has parking it is either going to be kind of tall or have tiny units.

[Tucy]

For the site next to Galatyn DART rail station, it may have been mentioned before, but it's confirmed to be a 372 unit multifamily building. The lot is relatively small, maybe 2 acres, so if this has parking it is either going to be kind of tall or have tiny units.

AMLI Galatyn Station (4-5 stories) across the street is on a slightly smaller property and has 285 units.

[The_Overdog]

Also apropos of nothing, but I have been traveling through the Telecom Corridor for work for years, and there is more building cleaning, maintenance, and repair crews working on the empty buildings (there are several) than I've ever seen. The owners must either be moving into the 'cutthroat stage' (all at the same time) or they are tremendously positive about leasing these buildings in the near future.