Developer Focuses on Urban Density in Oak Park
While it might be best known for large suburban subdivisions in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, David Weekley Homes is thinking smaller with one of its current projects.
The Houston-based company is nearing completion on Holland Avenue Villas, which includes eight detached townhomes on a property west of Dallas North Tollway, adjacent to the western border of Highland Park.
It’s the sort of smaller urban project that Weekley has successfully launched in cities such as Houston, Austin, and San Antonio, but hasn’t tried much locally.
“The bulk of our business in the Dallas area in the last few years has been new single-family homes,” said Phil Woodward, sales consultant for David Weekley Homes. “In a lot of other cities, we’re doing more of these in-town, higher-density projects like this.”
Woodward said the company saw an opportunity to fill a niche with the land in the Oak Park district, which has been vacant for several years.
“It’s unique to that area,” he said.
The three-story luxury townhomes each include three bedrooms and 3.5 baths, with balconies and small backyards, along with a shared driveway. They average about 2,000 square feet and are selling for about $500,000 each, with no homeowners’ association obligations.
Weekley already has sold more than half of the villas, with the first buyers scheduled to move in around the end of July, Woodward said. Construction on the rest of the project should be finished by September.
Holland Avenue Villas will be the latest project in the developing multifamily hotspot that includes the Avana West Lemmon luxury complex recently purchased by Greystar Real Estate. The area was originally was known as Cityville at Oak Park before former developer First Worthing scaled back plans.
Next to the Weekley project, Lennar Multifamily Communities has submitted plans for an apartment complex split by Holland Avenue between Cedar Plaza Lane and Wheeler Street.
The Crest at Oak Park development is slated for two vacant blocks covering more than four acres. The northern building will have up to 160 units, while the southern building will feature up to 87 units, according to development and landscape plans approved this summer by the Dallas Plan Commission.
Meanwhile, Lennar is building two other complexes under the Crest name in Dallas, one south of Mockingbird Station and the other in the Park Central development.
This story appears in the August edition of Park Cities People, on stands now.
