Rastegar’s Uptown Dallas Plans Springing Back to Life

Developer Ari Rastegar is applying defibrillators and resuscitating 2020-era plans for an Uptown residential building.

The Dallas City Council will hold a vote Wednesday to determine whether the 26-story high-rise can add nearly 160 feet to the original planned height of the building, set at McKinney Avenue and North Akard Street. The proposed zoning modification would allow the building to scale up to 399 feet, blowing past the previous 300 foot cap and original 240 foot plans. The request also looks to expand lot coverage by 10 percent to 85 percent, according to the Dallas Business Journal.

If the zoning requirements are changed, Austin-based Rastegar Capital will set around 5 percent of the mixed-use property for tenants earning 81-100 percent of the city’s median family income, according to the outlet.

The plans for the high rise have been dead in the water since the pandemic stalled real estate development around the world. According to the publication, Rastegar acquired the property from embattled Austin-based real estate developer Nate Paul in 2019, and quickly unveiled plans to alter the property.

Uptown Dallas is in the middle of a surge of interest in contrast to the struggling downtown area. While businesses are still adjusting to pandemic-related work from home patterns that gutted office space value, Uptown’s burgeoning Y’all Street financial district is booming. The slice of Dallas has seen the newly-minted Texas Stock Exchange move in, and investments for other development projects continue to flood in.

Some of Rastegar’s properties in and around Austin are facing foreclosure battles. In late 2025, four properties stared down the foreclosure barrel that was tied to a $22.7 million loan from Greystone. In March, Rastegar-owned Mueller Square Apartments hit the foreclosure auctions via a Thrive Lending Fund $10.2 million loan.

In 2025, Rastegar told The Real Deal that losing properties to foreclosure was ultimately okay, as the multifamily market is so frozen that it’s just another way to get out of a deal.

“We did 16 major multifamily deals during COVID. Some of them were the dumbest deals we ever did,” he said at a joint TRD and Rastegar Capital event in downtown Austin in October.

— Hunter Cooke