Partial Demolition Planned for Dallas’ Comerica Tower

A marquee Dallas skyscraper is headed for a controversial overhaul.

Slate Asset Management and Stream Realty Partners plan to redevelop the 60-story Comerica Bank Tower, the city’s third-tallest building, into a mixed-use hub with office, residential, hotel and retail components, the Dallas Morning News reported. It’s the proposed demolition of the tower’s banking hall and street-level plaza, however, that’s stirred the loudest response.

The redevelopment, designed by Dallas architecture giant HKS, would convert roughly 1 million of the 1.6 million-square-foot tower’s space. Plans call for about 600,000 square feet of modernized offices on upper floors, topped by 240 apartments, 10 percent of which would be designated affordable, and a 242-room hotel starting at the ninth floor. Developers also intend to add 10,000 square feet of ground-floor retail.

At the center of debate is a proposed parking garage “podium” that would replace the banking hall and plaza along Ervay Street. The garage would add nearly 450 parking spaces and serve as a base for a banquet hall and amenity floors.

Stream’s Ramsey March said the tower — designed by Philip Johnson and completed in 1987 — was built “as a fortress” and has long struggled with access and parking issues. Without intervention, occupancy could fall as low as 15 to 20 percent in the next five years, he said.

March drew comparisons to Stream’s successful repositioning of Trammell Crow Center and said the team is close to securing a deal with a “very prominent luxury category hotel.”

Critics have slammed the plan to raze the distinctive bank hall, arguing the garage would clash with the neighboring Wilson Building and Neiman Marcus flagship and erase a piece of Dallas architectural history. Architecture critic Mark Lamster, who called the building a “three-dimensional realization of 1980s Reaganomics,” said the overall redevelopment was a “welcome idea” but still took aim at the garage as a “tacked-on” addition.

The city’s Urban Design Peer Review Panel echoed those concerns, questioning whether the podium would create a blank, uninviting facade at street level. Slate managing director Brendan Shanahan said the designs are preliminary and will evolve during the city approval process.

— Judah Duke