The Crescent ready to begin $62.5M transformation

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Courtesy of The Crescent

The new front of The Crescent will include a 1-acre park with restaurant patio space.

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Candace Carlisle

Staff Writer- Dallas Business Journal

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In the past three decades, The Crescent and the surrounding Uptown neighborhood has transformed dramatically from an isolated, industrial area to a walkable, upscale community. That change has fueled plans for a $62.5 million renovation.

Crescent Property Services LLC plans to spend $27.5 million to upgrade the 1.3 million-square-foot mixed-use The Crescent at McKinney Avenue and Pearl Street in Uptown, and the Rosewood Crescent Hotel will invest another $35 million into its hotel, spa and club.

The renovations will include the 1-acre park in front of the property, the exterior of the property and the interior retail atrium.

This will be the property's first major renovation since its completion in 1986. John Burgee and Pritzker Prize-winning architect Philip Johnson originally designed the Crescent. Three years ago, Crescent spent nearly $15 million upgrading the office elevators and working on the mobility within the three-building office complex.

The Crescent's massive renovation will feed into the larger, 20-acre vision by Crescent Property Services LLC — which includes the renovations at the Ritz-Carlton, The Crescent renovations and the new McKinney & Olive development, said John Zogg, managing director of The Crescent, at a press conference Friday morning.

"This 20 acres will relate and talk to one another and be pretty seamless," Zogg said, adding the renovations will keep Uptown a business-centric place to recruit and retain employees.

"The Crescent has always been one of the most amenitized assets in the city," he said. "But today, with the addition of Ascension coffee and potentially two additional restaurants after that ... at The Crescent you don't have to get in your car and you can walk to what will be 10 restaurant locations in the city."

Plans for the renovation include removing the three-foot wall and creating entry points surrounding the 1-acre park to make it more accessible to the community, Zogg told me. At the time of development, The Crescent hadn't planned on making the front of the project a park. But times have changed, he said.

Candace covers commercial and residential real estate and sports business.