Exclusive: Olympic Property looks to snap up more of downtown Dallas

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Jake Dean

The 52-story office tower at 1401 Elm St. is in the midst of a $151 million redevelopment.

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Candace Carlisle

Staff Writer- Dallas Business Journal

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The group behind the massive $170 million redevelopment of 1401 Elm St., a 52-story, 1.3-million-square-foot building that has sat vacant for years, has plans to expand their foothold in downtown Dallas.

The development group — New York-based Olympic Property Partners LLC and Fort Worth-based BDRC — has a number of other nearby properties to 1401 Elm St. under contract, with plans to buy up the neighborhood, Seth Weinstein, a principal of Olympic told the Dallas Business Journal in an exclusive interview.

"We are under contract to purchase two other properties in downtown Dallas, and we expect to close on them at the beginning of December," Weinstein told me. "We are also in negotiation to buy other properties and expect to close them at the end of this year, or the beginning of 2015."

Weinstein declined to share the properties the group was considering buying, but added, "We are very excited about our work in Dallas. We plan to deploy a very large amount of capital in the downtown Dallas market."

The announcement was made during an exclusive interview and hard-hat tour with the Dallas Business Journal and is part of the group's larger strategic plan for the neighborhood, said Brian Dorsey, a principal at Fort Worth-based development firm BRDC.

Olympic recently opened an office in downtown Dallas at 1505 Federal St., which gives the development group better proximity to the construction site at 1401 Elm St.

Plans for the property include about 500 luxury apartments, up to 150,000 square feet of retail space and more than 900 parking spaces. The tower's floors 10 through 49 will be converted into apartments and perhaps some office space, although plans for office space have diminished as more and more retails hope to sign a deal at 1401 Elm St.

Candace covers commercial and residential real estate and sports business.