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Southern Dallas’ Redbird Mall Revitalization Brings Access, Talent, And Purchasing Power To The Area – Including A 150,000-SF Medical Center

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Five years after launching the redevelopment of Redbird Mall in Southern Dallas, owner and developer Peter Brodsky has proven his thesis—the demand for a vibrant mixed-use development south of Interstate 30 in Dallas is a sustainable investment that generates a profit.

Rendering: Reimagine Redbird

Reimagine Redbird, the revitalization project of a historic 1975 mall in Southern Dallas, is now home to the only Starbucks in the 208 square miles of Southern Dallas and the location is the No. 3 top performing Starbucks in the city. The development has created 1,000 living wage call center jobs with Chime Solutions, Class A apartments at the Palladium Redbird, the DEC—a thriving incubator space for entrepreneurs, and more.

“I am excited that a short five years later, we’ve really got momentum here,” said Brodsky, at a Wednesday, March 31 Tomorrow Fund Investors virtual meeting. “I think people are really understanding that this is a market to be addressed and it has to be addressed thoughtfully because there is a history there that has to be grappled with. But fundamentally, if you provide people the opportunity and the access, they’re going to rise to the occasion.”

Mike Rosa, DRC Senior Vice President of Economic Development, moderated the virtual discussion with Brodsky, which highlighted Chime Solutions CEO Mark Wilson’s expansion at Redbird and Brodsky’s update on the growing development.

Here are three key takeaways from Brodsky’s Reimagine Redbird development:

Room to Grow

Southern Dallas’ 208 square miles make up 54 percent of the City of Dallas’ land mass and 40 percent of the city’s population, yet it is only 15 percent of the tax base.

While past policies have left Southern Dallas underinvested and underdeveloped, Brodsky said the demand for services in the market creates a great opportunity for investors to build value in the community and generate an investment.

“There’s just been a lot of highways going through communities and there’s been a lot of landlords who don’t invest in their properties or put in amenities that are viewed as exploitive, such as payday lending,” Brodsky said. “So, we’ve invested a huge amount of time and effort to make sure that there’s trust with the community.”

The lack of real estate is visible in office space comparisons where about 95 percent of office space in Dallas is north of Interstate 30 and only five percent of office space is south of Interstate 30.

“That means 40 percent of the of population in Dallas can’t work where they live,” Brodsky said.

In a forgotten part of the city that lacks almost every amenity from restaurants to medical care facilities, Brodsky has been building bridges and creating partnerships throughout Dallas to attract every quality of life vertical to the site. Historically only served by one hospital, Methodist Health System, Redbird is now leasing 150,000 square feet of space to UT Southwestern Medical Center and is working with Parkland and Children’s Hospital on new space at the site. Development plans also include a Courtyard by Marriott, the area’s first branded hotel.

Access to Talent

In two years, Chime Solutions’ call center at Redbird has grown by 30,000 square feet with 1,000 living wage jobs, said Chime Solutions CEO Mark Wilson.

“Our run in Dallas as a company has been one that has been really gratifying and fulfilling,” Wilson said. “It has lived up to all of the promise that was put before us in my initial conversations with Peter Brodsky and those who introduced Redbird to us.”

Chime Solutions focuses on providing access to living wage jobs in underserved communities like Southern Dallas. The company partnered with Paul Quinn College to provide 25 students in a leadership program the opportunity to work with its client Kaiser Permanente on a project and it hopes to expand the partnership to surrounding universities.

“In a lot of these communities where, we as a company, have a focus today, there’s a lot of talent that’s really pent-up and hasn’t had a chance to see the light of day,” Wilson said. “Our company is really focused on trying to change that dynamic and doing whatever we can to cultivate, identify, and develop the talent that is there but just needs that investment.”

The company sees low employee turnover due to social programming investments it makes in its team, such as financial, homeownership and real estate classes and plans to provide a daycare on site.

“We’re looking forward to the day when a major international Fortune 500 company wants to be in the area because they see the workforce demographics at Redbird are the same at 75 and LBJ,” Brodsky said.

Dallas is also a hotspot for the company’s business development, Wilson said. In the last 90 days, Chime Solutions has signed commitments with Toyota, Cigna, Google, Humana, Dallas County, and more.

“Dallas has presented very nicely an opportunity for our company to exercise on our mission, but also do what we need to for our clients,” Wilson said.

Southern Dallas Is A ‘Great Location’

Located at Interstate 20 and State Highway 67, Redbird is closer to Downtown Dallas than the Galleria Mall.The site sits across the street from City of Dallas’s District 3, which is the largest middle-class district in Dallas.

“It’s well located and it’s a great place for a development,” Brodsky said. “It has a solidly middle-class audience. There are a lot of assets in the community that draw people from all over the city.”

In addition to the No. 3 performing Starbucks in the city, the area is home to many African American mega churches and education institutions, including Paul Quinn College, UNT Dallas, Dallas Baptist University, Mountain View College, and Cedar Valley College.

Recent data shows the average income of Redbird Starbucks patrons is between $75,000 and $100,000 a year in an area with no other amenities to frequent, Brodsky said.

The surrounding purchasing power is one of the reasons Redbird never closed despite years of neglect. As the only covered mall in Southern Dallas, it has become a symbol of quality over time.

“Let’s bring people to Southern Dallas and provide opportunities for the people who live there, and we’ll all grow together because a higher tax base is going to benefit everyone,” Brodsky said.

 

Source: Dallas Innovates

Bio Boom: Dallas-Fort Worth Is Emerging As A Hub For Biotech And Life Sciences

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Dallas-Fort Worth leads the nation in population and job growth, and the region was No.1 in both categories for 2019 and for the entire 2010 decade, for good reason.

Considered a premier location in the U.S. for headquarters, manufacturers, and logistics, DFW is home to an enviable roster of companies across major sectors like aerospace, automotive, data, energy, engineering, insurance, finance, food and beverage, retail, semiconductors, telecommunications, and transportation.

Eight Fortune 500 companies have decided to move headquarters to DFW since 2004. The most recent is Charles Schwab, whose move to Westlake from San Francisco will take effect Jan. 1, 2021.

DFW is also out front with new and emerging sectors. Artificial intelligence, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, big data, cybersecurity, and distributed ledger technology companies and jobs are here, and growing. DFW has it all. Almost.

You have not seen Dallas at or near the top of any list of “best cities” or “best places for” when the ranking is based on life sciences or biotechnology.  Chances are the City is not on the list at all. Boston, San Francisco, San Diego, Washington D.C., Raleigh-Durham, New York, New Jersey, and a few others share that spotlight.

More than most sectors, biotech companies cluster when choosing where to build facilities, invest and create jobs, even if costs are higher. Boston, San Francisco, and the others offer the established and branded aggregate of great research universities, existing and significant biotech and life science companies, a big talent pool, lab space, patent generation, and funding from venture capital firms or the National Institutes of Health.

Yet in recent years, the Dallas Regional Chamber has led bids that advanced DFW as a finalist for new biotechnology manufacturing facilities by Genentech, Novartis, and a few others. DFW was in the game on the strength of overall attributes as a great place to do business and a few stellar centers of biotech excellence like Alcon in Fort Worth and UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, the only academic medical center in the world to serve as home to six Nobel Laureates.

With a funding level of about $470 million annually, UT Southwestern Medical Center is a shining star. UT Southwestern conducts research and launches companies across a variety of fields including cancer, heart disease, and neuroscience; as well as training 3,600 medical professionals each year. Yet DFW was not selected. The biotech ecosystem was not as deep or evident compared to the winning locations. Now that’s changing quickly, for the better.

On Sept. 22, 2020,  biotech industry leader BioLabs announced that it is locating its first central U.S. location in  Dallas. BioLabs provides lab space and wrap-around services to incubate and accelerate biotech. BioLabs will operate in a 37,000 square-foot flexible life science coworking facility at Pegasus Park, developed by J. Small Investments, partnering with Lyda Hill Philanthropies. Pegasus Park is just north of downtown Dallas and is within walking distance of UT Southwestern Medical Center, a collaborator on the Park. BioLabs’ other locations are in hotspots like Boston, New York, San Diego, and Raleigh-Durham; places where, for years, Dallas entrepreneurs, scientists, and researchers sometimes had to go to launch their enterprises.

Companies like Alcon, Astra Zeneca, Peloton Therapeutics, Reata Pharmaceuticals, and Taysha Gene Therapies are in Dallas-Fort Worth, working on eye care, hyperkalemia, cancer, kidney disease, and diseases of the central nervous system. Other science in the region is focused on HIV, muscular dystrophy, brain research, and more. The University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth is conducting research in forensic genetics and Alzheimer’s. Texas A&M’s College of Dentistry in Dallas is nationally recognized for oral health and craniofacial research. As the region grows in population and diversity, researchers will be increasingly attracted here for clinical trials.

There are more than 60 companies and 27,000 jobs in biotechnology and life sciences in DFW. McKesson, a Fortune 10 company and the nation’s largest pharmaceutical distributor, is now headquartered in Irving, for good reason. Dallas Fort Worth International Airport boasts a new 37,000-square-foot cold chain storage facility. It allows the refrigerated storage and rapid delivery to and from the region of temperature and time-sensitive pharmaceuticals and therapies.

There is a lot of runway in the biotechnology sector in DFW, and the assets and reputation are building in a positive direction. Objective third parties are taking note. In an October 2020 life science cluster report by CBRE, DFW was ranked 6th on a list of top ten emerging life science clusters in the U.S. Biotechnology is alive and growing in DFW.

 

Source: Dallas Innovates

 

We May Have Lost Amazon, But Biotech Could Be Dallas’ Next Big Move

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While no doubt a disappointment, Amazon’s decision to locate its second headquarters in New York and Virginia doesn’t diminish the economic vitality of North Texas. In fact, Dallas’ strong showing in the company’s high-profile national search bolsters our reputation as an attractive region for business.

Now, as we take stock of the Amazon decision and explore new ways to grow the local economy, let’s consider the potential of an untapped community asset: biotechnology.

Dallas is well-known for its oil industry, corporate headquarters, and technology startups. But did you know that the science behind some of the best-selling prescription drugs of all time was developed here?

Nobel Prize-winning discoveries made by Drs. Michael Brown and Joseph Goldstein at UT Southwestern Medical Center three decades ago led to cholesterol-lowering statin drugs that have revolutionized cardiac care. Tens of millions of adults worldwide now take statins to control their cholesterol, generating annual sales that reached $19 billion in 2017.

The success of statin drugs illustrates the economic potential of biomedical research underway in Dallas. At UT Southwestern, scientists continue to turn out discoveries that could lead to the wonder drugs of tomorrow, such as gene therapies for deadly diseases or treatments for Alzheimer’s. These research programs represent commercial opportunities that could add jobs and wealth to our community – if we provide financial and business support to grow this vital industry.

Two weeks ago, the promise of biotech was on display as about 500 entrepreneurs, researchers, and investors from around the country came to Dallas for an annual investment conference sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health. The event, held annually to promote two government programs that provide early stage funding to startups, marked the first time the conference was held in the Southwest – a nod to our state’s star potential in the biotech industry.

In Dallas-Fort Worth, we have the pieces in place to attract and grow biotech jobs. The same factors that have made DFW attractive to companies like Amazon and Toyota – a world-class airport, an educated workforce, access to capital, low taxes, business-friendly government, and ample real estate – are also attractive to life science ventures. Additionally, our cluster of higher-education institutions – UT Southwestern, UT Dallas, UT Arlington, SMU, TCU, and the UNT Health Science Center – is expanding its investment in scientific research and generating more discoveries that can be translated into products.

UT Southwestern alone spends about $450 million a year on research and ranks fifth in the world for its impact on inventions, as measured by the number of research articles cited in patent applications.

Despite these strengths, Dallas-Fort Worth lags in this growing economic sector. While local labs have spawned successful companies such as Reata Pharmaceuticals and Peloton Therapeutics, biotech remains a small part of the North Texas economy. And there have been missed opportunities. Unfortunately, most of the capital raised by local biotech startups comes from the coasts, leading those companies to move to Boston or California where backers can keep a close eye on their investments.

Our universities, incubators, and accelerators, along with bionorthTX, a regional organization for the life sciences industry, are eager to push the ball forward. How? By marshaling resources to promote our region; getting help from government entities to attract biotech firms and major drug companies; and persuading sponsors, partners, and financial backers that their support is needed.

Dallas will certainly compete in the future for more major corporate expansions like Amazon. But in the meantime, let’s capitalize on our local scientific know-how. By working together, we can make Dallas a new hub for the biotech industry and further enrich the North Texas economy.

 

Source:  D Magazine