Well, hold my horses. I should have known better. Leland Burk does NOT own the Preston Doctor’s Center, yet. But if all goes as planned, he will own it by October. I should know the first rule of real estate transactions: it ain’t over until the contract is signed. What happened is that Leland asked the Planning & Zoning Commission to withdraw the plans for the Highland House proposal, the plans that were tabled pending the land-use study. The Dallas Morning News found out about the withdrawal, and phoned Burk, who was in London, and spoke to the DMN’s Tom Benning over the phone. Keep in mind, as I should have, that even Crosland Co. doesn’t own the property. The property is still owned, as it has been, by the same entities, two sisters, I hear, who are eager to sell, one maybe more than the other. Crosland had a contract to buy it, Rick Williamson had negotiated an extension of the contract, and Crosland has now assigned their contract over to Leland’s entity. I will claim vacation brain — I read Benning’s piece “Since then, developer Leland Burk purchased the property” and thought maybe the deal had transpired, even closed, while I was in Maine, which would have been like a miracle.
Like any careful buyer, Leland is in a due diligence period figuring out all the angles of the sale. I still think Benning’s article gave Laura Miller way too much credit for stopping the development she thought was as tall as Reunion Tower. I’ve been to almost every meeting, and feel others have more concerns than just height. Traffic IS horrible in Preston Center. It’s horrible because of the center parking garage and the one way streets around it . It’s horrible because delivery trucks stop and deliver in the middle of the street. It’s horrible because there are too many offices. Nice residential could make the area more West-Village-esque.
Like I said, right now it’s one Big Hot Mess at Preston Center West. Maybe that’s what they should nickname the study.
