Maple Terrace planners cite disappointing sales in halting project

12:00 AM CDT on Tuesday, July 25, 2006

By STEVE BROWN / The Dallas Morning News

Developers have canceled plans for a high-profile Uptown condo deal.

FILE 2000/Staff photo

High Street Residential plans to continue renting the Maple Terrace building as apartments.

Trammell Crow Co. has halted efforts to construct condominiums in Dallas' historic Maple Terrace building and develop an adjoining high-rise because sales did not meet expectations.

The $87 million project was to have included 68 homes in the landmark Maple Avenue building, plus 170 more units in a new 16-story tower. The first condos were to have been ready next year.

With units starting at just over $200,000, the Maple Terrace was more moderately priced than other Uptown high-rise projects.

But last week developer High Street Residential, a division of Trammell Crow, began notifying buyers in the Maple Terrace that the condo development is dead.

The owners plan to continue renting the building as apartments, said Art Lomenick, managing director of High Street Residential.

"The condominium and apartment markets are very different from what they were a year ago, and the partners have made a strategic decision to operate the property as a luxury apartment community," he said in a statement.

The Maple Terrace is the latest and largest Dallas-area condominium project to be canceled.

Earlier this year developer Fairfield Residential pulled the plug on an Addison condo project after pre-sales failed to meet expectations.

Two other condominium conversions – one on Turtle Creek and another in North Dallas – were canceled last year.

Developer Mockingbird Properties has gone back to the drawing board for its Galleria North condominium tower in Far North Dallas. The developer is now studying hotel plans.

Construction is under way on a handful of luxury condo towers in central Dallas.

More buildings are in presales but have not been started.

With rising construction costs and higher mortgage rates, real estate analysts say they will be surprised if all the condo projects planned get built.

"It's typical of what is happening in a lot of markets and has happened earlier in other markets than Dallas," said Ron Witten of Witten Advisors. "The underlying demand for condos is strong and will stay strong for some time, but we have a little bit of oversupply nationally."

But the number of investors in the condo market has declined dramatically, said Mike Puls with Foley & Puls.

"That was the market spending the most amount of money per square foot," he said. "Even if you have a good location and a good developer, if you target the wrong market they won't show up."

The 81-year-old Maple Terrace has long been a Dallas landmark.

But several redevelopment plans – including one to convert the building to a luxury hotel – have not gone forward.

Designed by British architect Alfred Blossom, the Maple Terrace has about 80 units that over the years attracted visiting celebrities and local luminaries.

E-mail stevebrown@dallasnews.com