Mehrdad Moayedi Buys Harwood’s Bleu Ciel Condos

Mehrdad Moayedi is the latest player to plant a flag in Dallas’ Harwood District, on the heels of a distress sale involving property developed by Gabriel Barbier-Mueller’s Harwood International.

The Centurion American founder confirmed to The Real Deal that he purchased 20 units at Bleu Ciel from TexasBank after the lender acquired the condos in a $23.6 million credit bid at a foreclosure sale last week. The condos ended up at auction after Harwood International allegedly defaulted on a $30 million loan from TexasBank, according to Roddy’s Foreclosure Listing Service.

The condos have been sitting empty since the 33-story Bleu Ciel opened at 3130 North Harwood Street in 2018. Moayedi plans to update them.

“I think Gabriel is a great developer,” Moayedi said. “He did a good job. It’s a great piece of property, and I’m going to improve going from there and respect his legacy.”

Moayedi said he likes the building so much that he’s planning to keep one of the Bleu Ciel penthouses.

Though Moayedi’s bread and butter is single-family home development in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs, he’s no stranger to vertical living in Uptown. A few blocks from Bleu Ciel, sales launched in December for Residences on Routh, a 20-unit condo building Moayedi developed at 3610 Routh Street in Turtle Creek.

Moayedi joins a growing group of real estate operators with a recently acquired stake in the 19-block district that Barbier-Mueller has been developing since the 1970s. The swift unraveling of the firm created a rare opportunity for operators eyeing Uptown.

Spear Street Capital snapped up Harwood No. 4, at 2828 North Harwood Street, in an April sale with a $73 million credit bid. Spear Street plans to keep the building and update it. Bill Cawley of Dallas-based Cawley Partners bought Harwood No. 1 from First United Bank after the lender took control of the property at 2651 North Harwood Street in a November sale.

Meanwhile, Harwood International quietly offloaded five Dallas office properties to San Francisco-based private equity fund TPG, which said in January that it is Harwood’s recapitalization partner.

TPG now owns Harwood buildings totaling 1.2 million square feet of office space:

Harwood No. 2, at 2728 North Harwood Street;
Harwood No. 3, at 2727 North Harwood Street;
Harwood No. 6 (also known as Saint Ann Court), at 2501 North Harwood Street;
Harwood No. 7 (also known as Frost Tower), at 2950 North Harwood Street; and
Harwood No. 10, at 2850 North Harwood Street.

TPG has plans to renovate the properties. According to a press release, Harwood International retains a minority stake.The upside to Harwood’s distress is so enticing to real estate operators because Uptown is the reigning top submarket in Dallas-Fort Worth. It boasts the highest office rents of any submarket in the region, with an overall average gross rent of $62.21 per square foot, according to a recent report from Partners Real Estate. Uptown has also become synonymous with Y’all Street; it’s the future home of trophy towers for banks like Goldman Sachs and Bank of America.