Looking south from the north roundabout at Lakeside DFW, one sees empty fields east and west of Lakeside Parkway.
The empty fields at Lakeside DFW contrast with the hubub of this street scene in Legacy Town Center. (Photo courtesy of the City of Plano)
About 13 years ago, similarly empty fields sat along the north and south sides of Legacy Drive just east of the Dallas North Tollway in Plano.
Then construction began in 1999. By 2000 and 2001, a few shops, a luxury hotel, and 384 apartments were completed on the south side of Legacy Drive. Ever since, Legacy Town Center has grown non-stop.
“We have been able to give people a destination,” Shops at Legacy developer Fehmi Karahan told Steve Brown of The Dallas Morning News in November 2010, “a place they can go with a feeling of being someplace else without leaving the Dallas area”
“It’s a vision that has come together even through the bad times.”
“We now have over 30 restaurants in the development in every price range,” Karahan added in his interview with Brown. “People are cutting back on maybe their travel, but they still want to go out to eat.”
What ignited the success of Legacy Town Center?
The proximity of so many large corporations served as perhaps the most important catalyst for Legacy Town Center by providing a nearly insatiable demand for restaurants and conveniently located apartments.
The employees from firms like JCPenney, The Frito-Lay Company, Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Countrywide Home Loans, Ericsson, McAfee, Inc., Pepsico, Intuit and Cingular Wireless were hungry for convenient places to “do lunch,” run errands, and “get together after work.”
Restaurants need solid traffic at both lunch and dinner to prosper. Legacy Town Center had both. Today, over 50,000 live and work in the Legacy business park. Those numbers provide lots of fuel for the business at Legacy Town Center.
What’s the most important use in Legacy Town Center’s mix of uses?
Legacy Town Center features lots of multi-family with retail below on the street level. Both components have contributed to the success of the project. (Photo courtesy of the City of Plano)
“Housing is an important piece, but the magic is all in the retail,” noted Dallas apartment developer Robert Shaw in the Dallas News story.
“At the very beginning, Legacy Town Center had an original plan that was good,” added Shaw, who has built a multi-family project at Legacy virtually every year since 2002. “And they had someone who was able to bring the magic of the retail all together: Fehmi Karahan. He was the one who stepped up and put his heart and soul into it.”
“I have restaurants in mixed-use projects all over the state of Texas,” said restaurateur Kent Rathbun in the Dallas News story. “And I can certainly tell you that Fehmi is a huge part of the success of [Legacy Town Center].”
It was in 2002 that Karahan took Rathbun to the top of the EDS headquarters building for a bird’s-eye view of the area surrounding the site.
“Looking in all directions, I could see the rooftops of homes,” Rathbun said. “It drove home the fact that people would come if you offered them the right product.”
Legacy Town Center today
The Marriott at Legacy Town Center and upscale apartments surround the lake and central plaza at Legacy Town Center. (Photo courtesy of the City of Plano)
It is estimated that 4 million people visit Legacy Town Square every year. It features:
- over 600,000 sq. ft. of retail
- over 3,600 units of multi-family
- 289 townhouses
- one 356-room Marriott Hotel
- one, five-screen Angelika Film Center
- over 800,000 square feet office space and growing
Last year, EnCana Oil & Gas (USA) Inc. began building a $1 billion, three-building complex on a 7-acre tract just north of Legacy Drive in Legacy Town Center. The first 13-story tower includes 320,000-square-feet and accommodates the firm’s 650 employees. Encana is the largest single employer in Legacy Town Center. Two 12-story office buildings are also planned for the site.
In November 2011, Heady Investments began construction on a six-story, 164,000-square-foot building at the southeast corner of Headquarters Drive and the Dallas North Tollway at Legacy Town Center. The speculative project was predicated on the lure of Legacy Town Center.
While the thousands in the Legacy business park helped provide the demand that Legacy Town Center needed in 2001-09, the tables have turned. The Town Center now serves as the primary amenity that attracts employers – not just to the business park, but to the Town Center itself.
RoChelle,
I would like to invite you to the open house at Lakeside tomorrow from 10 AM to NOON. I understand your philosophical concerns. I suspect if you take a few moments to look at our beautiful property and review the site plan, you will support an amendment to the Master Plan.
When Lakeside DFW was first zoned in the eighties for 40-story office towers with the hope of becoming another Las Colinas, it was an interesting idea. However, the market never responded to this plan. And so far in the 2010′s, we have not met a single Flower Mound resident or a single development expert who thinks this is a good idea.
The Master Plan currently prohibits us from building restaurants and shops overlooking the lake; the Master Plan prevents Flower Mound residents from accessing the most beautiful property in DFW, and it allows for MASSIVE density of office towers that would prevent the public from ever accessing the lake views.
Please spend a few minutes to visit our GORGEOUS property, review our plan, and share with us your view of the best uses for the property. Our neighbors, the people of Flower Mound, and development experts are all supporting a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood that will include restaurants, shops, and offices.
You can also call me to schedule a private tour at your convenience.
Brian Leek
Realty Capital
(469) 533-4137
Thanks RoChelle. You bring up an important point that we are studying carefully in consultation with LISD officials.
While we will provide more detail later, you should know the housing options in Lakeside DFW will be tailored in design and price for empty nesters, seniors, and young professionals.
Fortunately for the LISD and Flower Mound taxpayers, these types of residents rarely have children.
I have to disagree with you. I know for a fact a lot of people with children opt for apartments and condos because they can’t afford to buy a house. Not to mention the traffic congestion we already have running along 2499. Multi-housing will add to this.
Not crazy about the idea of having mulit-family housing. Has anyone stopped to think about what kind of over crowding this may cause our schools and who is going to pay the taxes to hire more teachers and expand the schools to support the additional students? I know we don’t need higher property taxes. I’m all for the retail and office space so long as it doesn’t interfere with the residents of Flower Mound having access to the lake front. I thought Flower Mound had a “Master Plan”. Hope this doesn’t change it.