Cawley Partners adapting to multifamily

Adapt or die. Dallas-area commercial development firm Cawley Partners is choosing evolution.

The firm has long focused on office development across the metroplex, developing office buildings up and down the Dallas North Tollway and across Addison, Plano and Far North Dallas.  Now it’s creating a division to focus solely on multifamily builds, the Dallas Morning News reported. 

The division will begin with a two-building apartment community off Northwest Highway in the Preston Center district. The buildings will rise 16 and nine stories, and the project will total 225 units.

While panic is not as severe as other major metros across the country, the Dallas office market has taken a hit as more companies offer work-from-home positions. Meanwhile, the multifamily residential market has continued to boom across the metroplex.

“We are just trying to find opportunities,” said Bill Cawley, chairman of Cawley Partners. “That Preston Center site we think is irreplaceable real estate.”

Cawley Partners has been around since 1996 and has developed more than 15 million square feet of commercial real estate projects. The firm currently has office projects in the works, including one off the Dallas North Tollway in Plano.

Kris Kashata left developer Crescent Communities to head the new Cawley multifamily division. Kashata has developed projects in Houston and Dallas’ North Oak Cliff and Deep Ellum.

More than 65,000 multifamily units in the construction pipeline across Dallas-Fort Worth, the highest such figure in the country, and the demand for housing in the metroplex doesn’t seem to be slowing. Though developers are facing some push back from NIMBYS who are opposed to high density housing.

—Erick Pirayesh