Downtown Dallas' newest development district has landed a major new tech tenant.

Dialexa — a fast-growing tech product development and R&D firm that got its start on the east side of Downtown — is renting a row of three buildings in the new East Quarter project on Commerce Street.

Dialexa will be the largest tenant in the neighborhood of converted historical buildings along Commerce, Main, and Jackson Streets.

The East Quarter redevelopment of almost two dozen properties was started earlier this year by the Dallas developer Todd Interests.

"They are taking a whole series of buildings at the southeast corner of Commerce and Cesar Chavez," said developer Shawn Todd. "They wanted to be in a place with a strong street presence and a pedestrian environment."


​

Urban residents who meander into Royal Blue’s location at Main and Ervay streets will find fresh produce, artisan foods, prepared meals from the in-house kitchen, and local options, like breakfast tacos from Tacodeli. It feels closer to a dressed-up New York bodega than the big-box grocery stores of suburbia. “East Coast people love it, and they get it the minute they walk in,” Ray-Porter says.

Downtown was ready for Royal Blue. The central business district has seen explosive residential growth in recent years, but it had remained a food desert.  According to Downtown Dallas, Inc., 11,000 people live in the city’s urban core. There are more than 8,200 existing residential units downtown and in surrounding neighborhoods, with 3,100 more on the way. The city center’s daytime population is booming, too with about 135,000 people working in the CBD.

Royal Blue offers Downtown residents and workers a way to stay in their neighborhood and complete the live-work-play triumvirate so many aim to achieve. “We are all looking for convenience,” Ray-Porter says. “Most people are shopping for one, or two days max, and moms don’t cook as much anymore."

​
​

​

Dallas-based AT&T was looking for a local problem to tackle. It found it just steps from its headquarters, on the streets and sidewalks of Downtown Dallas.

The telecom giant announced Tuesday that it’s launching a campaign aimed at reducing homelessness, especially among families and veterans. As part of the effort, AT&T will donate more than half a million dollars to homeless service providers, urge its thousands of employees to volunteer and use company resources, such as technology and job fairs, to fight root causes.

“You can’t step over a homeless person sleeping on the street, go to work, and feel like your work is changing the world,” said John Donovan, chief executive of AT&T Communications. “You’ve got to have compassion for the problem that’s close to home. And working in this building, it’s really local to us here. It’s literally on our doorstep.”

The campaign, called Believe Dallas, is part of a larger effort by AT&T to address hard-to-solve challenges in major cities across the country. In Chicago, AT&T launched a campaign focused on hiring and training people in neighborhoods hard hit by gun violence. In New York City, it is educating parents and kids about ways to combat cyberbullying and other risk-taking behavior of young people online. It plans to launch similar initiatives in other cities.

In Dallas, AT&T will donate $565,000 to nonprofits, homeless shelters and churches.  Downtown Dallas, Inc. is honored to have received a $125,000 grant to continue our Early Morning Initiative, a pilot program to address early morning quality of life issues in public space, in 2019.
​

The Architecture and Design Exchange is Now Open in Downtown

As Reported by D Magazine
                                                ​

Architecture has a new epicenter in Dallas with the opening of AD EX (short for The Architecture and Design Exchange) this Saturday in downtown near Thanks-Giving Square. Formerly known as the Dallas Center for Architecture, AD EX is home to the Dallas chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA Dallas) and The Architecture and Design Foundation.

It may sound like an attraction for architects and architecture students, but it’s relevant to anyone who’s interested in the city and the way it functions. The center offers public programming such as walking tours of Dallas and panel discussions on topics like urban planning. You’ll also find architecture-infused art exhibitions.

“We very much are trying to bridge that gap between the public and what people call ‘Big-A’ architecture,” says Greg Brown, director of AD EX. “What we say architecture is, is everything people have done to the natural environments. We spend 99 percent of our time in architecture, so we better have opinions about it. And it really affects our city.”

Brown hopes that the new, 13,000-square-foot facility Downtown will increase the organization’s community engagement. Where the old Dallas Center for Architecture was tucked away near Klyde Warren Park, AD EX has an approachable storefront in the middle of Downtown with a larger exhibition space, a Design Learning Lab, and a front porch.
​

As Reported by The Dallas Morning News

A Downtown Dallas skyscraper is getting a big dose of new retail space as part of a $10 million makeover.

A renovation in the works is adding almost 10,000 square feet more of restaurant and retail space to the 35-year-old 1700 Pacific tower. Plus, the building's Canadian owners are contemplating more restaurant space in the lobby that will face Downtown's new Pacific Plaza park.

At lunchtime, the tower's existing lower level restaurant court -- which hasn't had much of an update since the 1980s -- is already one of the most popular eat spots Downtown. It opens onto Ervay Street.

"Even in the shape it's in now, it's still busy," said Ben Onderdonk, executive vice president of Wellington Realty, which is leasing the building for Montreal-based owner Olymbec. "A good portion of the existing concourse retail is about to be repurposed."

Discussions are underway with local restaurant groups to complement nationally known brands Starbucks, Subway, and Smoothie King, Onderdonk said.

​
​