Owners of Dallas’ RedBird mall redevelopment are seeking new investment partners to continue the $200 million project.
Since 2015, developers have converted the 100-acre shopping mall in southwest Dallas into a successful mixed-use project with medical uses, offices, shops and apartments.
RedBird’s owners are now seeking an outside investor to help them add to the project. They’ve hired commercial property firm Jones Lang LaSalle to “arrange structured equity from a third-party investor to recapitalize the current partnership and fund future growth opportunities.”
RedBird lead developer Peter Brodsky said there are no plans to sell the property — just the intention to bring in new investors.
“We have tons of opportunities to invest and want to strike while the iron is hot,” Brodsky said in an email. “In the current debt environment, that requires more equity.
“Also, the development is far enough along to be appropriate for institutional capital,” he said. “I do want to emphasize that this is not a sale. No investor, including and especially myself, is selling anything. This is purely to raise growth capital.”
After more than five years of construction, the RedBird mall redo has won awards for its reuse of a former regional retail center. The mall, built in the 1970s, was largely vacant when Brodsky and partner Terrence Maiden bought it.
The city of Dallas pitched in more than $27 million for the project, and RedBird’s developers raised more than $30 million from almost two dozen equity investors.
The RedBird redo has been widely recognized for its success.
UT Southwestern last summer opened a 153,000-square-foot medical facility at RedBird. Parkland Health has opened a 40,000-square-foot community medical center in part of what used to be an old department store at the mall. Chime Solutions occupied 50,000 square feet of office space, and the Dallas Entrepreneur Center took a 20,000-square-foot suite for its entrepreneurial innovation center.
Grocer Tom Thumb also has agreed to locate a new 50,000-square-foot supermarket at RedBird. Other retail tenants in the project include Foot Locker, Champs Sports, Starbucks and Fuzzy’s Taco Shop.
And 300 units of new apartments built by developer Palladium USA leased ahead of schedule and have stayed almost fully rented.
RedBird still has room to grow with more of the old mall to recycle and vacant land to build on.
“With 33 acres of development-ready parcels, RedBird offers multiple opportunities for new, ground-up development,” said JLL’s marketing pitch to potential investors. “Discussions are currently ongoing involving such projects as a grocery-anchored center; another retail center anchored by a successful discount clothing chain and a hotel.
“This rare opportunity provides investors the ability to invest in a high-growth market at an attractive basis through cash-flowing properties, attractive new development opportunities and proven sponsorship,” according to JLL. “In addition, an investor would be contributing to an initiative to improve an underserved area of Dallas.”
