De La Vega Buys Dallas’ Turtle Creek Village Shopping Center

De La Vega Capital is giving an aging Oak Lawn retail center a second act.

The Dallas-based development firm led by Artemio De La Vega acquired Turtle Creek Village with mixed-use redevelopment plans, the Dallas Business Journal reported.

De La Vega, the developer behind the $2.5 billion East Dallas project The Central, closed on the acquisition May 13 through an affiliated entity, DLV TC Village LP.

The seller was Los Angeles–based CIM Group, which bought the site, at 3838 Oak Lawn Avenue, in 2017 and renovated the office and retail components. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but its taxable value is $78 million, or $240 per square foot.

The 7.3-acre site includes an 18-story, 230,000-square-foot office building and 95,000 square feet of retail anchored by a Tom Thumb grocery store. Tenants include Lululemon, World Market, LensCrafters, fitness concepts and restaurants like Mister O1 and Neighborhood Services.

The office building, constructed by Trammell Crow Company in 1969 and renovated in 2022, is 94 percent leased. JLL will handle future leasing for the tower. De La Vega also plans to “activate” the office component as part of a cohesive ecosystem with the retail portion.

Specific redevelopment plans haven’t been revealed, but early ideas include refreshing the tenant mix, adding restaurants, expanding patio and terrace areas and making the car-heavy site more walkable. De La Vega plans to hold the site as a legacy asset.

De La Vega Capital, said

The group’s long-term goal is to move away from a transactional shopping center model that “you just go in and out of” and instead build a destination where people can “gather and connect,” De La Vega Capital’s Annmarie De La Vega said. The firm plans to work with current tenants before rolling out major changes.

The site’s location near Uptown, Oak Lawn and Turtle Creek made it a strategic investment, De La Vega said. The firm hopes the reimagined center can serve the neighborhood more directly, rather than simply backfilling vacancies.

— Judah Duke