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Dallas

Santander Tower’s resi conversion moves forward

Renovation of the 36-year-old office tower now has a contractor and apartment builder

Mintwood's Katy Slade and Adolfson & Peterson’s Will Pender with Santander Tower (LinkedIn, Google Maps)
Mintwood's Katy Slade and Adolfson & Peterson’s Will Pender with Santander Tower (LinkedIn, Google Maps)

The 50-story Santander Tower — formerly the Thanksgiving Tower — at 1601 Elm Street in Dallas’s Central Business District is finally getting its resi makeover.

The tower’s transformation is part of a long term plan by Dallas-based Woods Capital to convert about 800,000 square feet of its office portfolio into luxury apartments. The redevelopment plans to include 228 new apartments in the 1.4 million-square-foot office tower are now moving ahead with the naming of a contractor and apartment builder, according to the Dallas Morning News.

Adolfson & Peterson Construction is named as the general contractor on the project. Washington, D.C.-based WDG Architecture has been tapped as the designer with Dallas apartment builder Mintwood Real Estate helping to convert the office space.

Woods Capital has assembled a $1 billion portfolio of downtown Dallas office buildings and created an entity called Pacific Elm Properties to serve as the holding company for about four and a half million square feet of downtown office space destined for residential conversion.

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“Converting high-rise office floors to residences in the Dallas central business district provides much-needed housing,” says Mintwood CEO Katy Slade. Will Pender, president of the Adolfson & Peterson’s Gulf States region says the Dallas central business district is “ripe for office-to-residential conversions.”

The Santander Tower — built back in 1986 — is far from the only old Dallas skyscraper slated for conversion into residential units.

Energy Plaza, a 49-story tower which opened on Bryan Street in 1983 is also set to be converted into apartments by its new owner Todd Interests. Bryan Tower and Renaissance Tower are also getting renovated to add residential units.

“The conversion of some of these 1980s towers to residential could be one of the best things that has happened to our central business district,” said Phil Puckett, vice chairman of CBRE Group. “If all of these conversions take place, this could reduce our total office space square footage by approximately 3.7 million square feet.”

— Maddy Sperling