A planned high-rise development for Frisco’s northern border at 230-acre Firefly Park will feature millions of square feet of offices and a luxury hotel.
Located at the busy southwest corner of the Dallas North Tollway and U.S. Highway 380, the first phase of the project by Wilks Development will include a 200-room Dream Hotel, and construction is planned to start next year, according to the Dallas Morning News.
“Our signature hotel — the Dream Hotel — will be the first thing we build up there,” said developer Kyle Wilks. “We have an ambitious plan for vertical construction. We have to have quite a bit of density on day one.”
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Wilks Development hired Amsterdam-based architect UN Studio and Sasaki Associates to design Firefly Park.
The project’s plans also call for almost 5 million square feet of office space, 2,200 luxury residential units, multiple food and beverage venues, 380,000 square feet of retail space, and a music hall and outdoor amphitheater, according to the publication.
The boutique Frisco hotel will be the first Texas location for Dream Hotels, which operates properties in North America, Asia, and the Middle East. Dream Hotels are now open in the U.S. in New York, Nashville, Hollywood, and Miami.
“We wanted to do something with a different flair,” Wilks said. “We believe Frisco is becoming an international city, and we wanted to participate in that.”
Dream Hotel Group CEO Jay Stein said he was honored to work with Wilks Development on the project and was comfortable that its project would work well in Frisco, where Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is developing a mixed-use project. The Firefly Park site is northeast of where the PGA of America is building its new headquarters, which will have two champion golf courses and an Omni Hotel and Resort.
“We had looked at Frisco a number of years back at a different site,” he said. “That’s when I really got to understand what Frisco was about and why it was such an important city.”
Wilks Development has properties in West Texas, Fort Worth, and Southlake, and purchased the property back in 2015, according to Wilks. The company was founded by the family of energy executives Dan and Farris Wilks, who started their business in the West Texas town of Cisco.
“We’ve always believed the growth would follow the Dallas North Tollway,” Wilks said. “For years to come, that is going to be the biggest opportunity in the Metroplex.”
The first phase of the Firefly Park project is set to open in 2026.
[Dallas Morning News] — James Bell