The final pieces of what used to be Valley View Mall sat in a pile of rubble Tuesday morning as developers with Beck Ventures announced future plans for Dallas Midtown on the site near Preston Road and Dilbeck Lane.
Longtime Beck partner Anthem Development expects to secure permits by the fall for the anchor project, an $80 million mixed-use development.
Anthem CEO Ross Frankfurt said the project will include 275 luxury condos, 10,000 square feet of amenity space, and 26,000 square feet of retail and restaurants.
“This announcement is especially exciting to me as a fourth-generation Dallasite,” Frankfurt said. “I grew up just down the road and I have fond memories of going to Valley View Mall throughout my childhood. Seeing the mall finally gone gives me more than just feelings of nostalgia. It gets me excited for what is to come.”
It will take about two years to complete the project, Frankfurt told daltxrealestate.com.
The land is within a Tax Increment Financing District, but the undeveloped area hasn’t yet accrued any increment with which to finance affordable housing. Developer Scott Beck said he hopes the condo project will kickstart development and ultimately bring significant revenue to the Dallas tax base. Future projects, such as a hotel, office building, and more apartments, will be market-driven, Beck said.
Almost all the residential development within the immediate area is already affordable, he added.
“This is just the beginning,” Beck said. “Dallas Midtown isn’t simply a series of structures. It’s a testament to the spirit of unity, diversity, and innovation in Dallas. Envision a mixed-use village on a parcel of land larger than Uptown that will redefine the North Dallas landscape and bring a robust new tax base to our beloved city.”
Demolishing Valley View Center
The road to demolition was many years in the making, fraught with conflict, and the subject of much political controversy as daltxrealestate.com publisher Candace Evans took on District 11 Councilwoman Jaynie Schultz in the Dallas City Council election in May.
Schultz was re-elected to her seat with 58.63 percent of the vote.
Representatives from Beck Ventures, which purchased the property in 2012, told daltxrealestate.com that Schultz offered city assistance to complete demolition back in 2021 if they would agree to build low-income housing, but they refused.
Evans in her campaign pointed to the eyesore and “habitual criminal property” as a failure on Schultz’s part to work with developers on much-needed housing.
While longtime Dallasites remember shopping at Valley View and taking in a flick at the movie theater, the old mall fell into disrepair and became a gathering spot for the homeless. After one of several fires at the abandoned site, the Dallas Police Department declared it a “habitual criminal property” in February.
The designation, established in 2017 under a nuisance abatement ordinance, is intended to increase property owner accountability in reducing crime. The city mandated that demolition on the 30-acre site be complete by June 1.
None of that was mentioned Tuesday as both Schultz and Beck expressed their enthusiasm about the partnership going forward and plans for new development on the long-abandoned site.
“We’ve turned over a new leaf,” Beck said. “We’re not really going to be talking about what has happened in the past or what hasn’t happened in the past. We’re just going to move forward from today in positive messaging from a unity perspective of us working with the City of Dallas and city staff. We’re just excited about the next 10 years.”
The Future of Dallas Midtown
Beck Ventures owns and controls the entire parcel they’re referring to as Dallas Midtown.
“There’s no debt on the property, so it’s 100 percent equity right now,” Beck said. “My father started the company 51 years ago after leaving Trammell Crow. Our company has always been in the master-planned community business, so that’s really how we do business.”
The Becks are best known in North Texas for developing the town of Trophy Club.
The Dallas Midtown development will offer direct connectivity to the Galleria Mall through a future elevated tram project, Beck said.
“Our promise is not just to construct buildings but to build a vibrant community,” Beck said. “This transformation reflects our collective vision to make Dallas an even greater city.”
Schultz briefly addressed a $10 million grant through the North Texas Council of Governments for an Automated Transportation Station. It’s still in the planning phase, but is part of the overall plan for the district, she said.
“The final demolition and clearing of the Valley View site is an important step in the fulfillment of a vision set forth more than 10 years ago,” Schultz said. “The vision of the Dallas International District is to be a new regional downtown that thousands of people call home, thousands more are employed, and hundreds of thousands come from across North Texas and the world to visit as a global meeting place.”
Realtor Diane Benjamin asked for clarification on whether the area was called the International District, as Schultz referred to it, or Dallas Midtown, the name used by developers.
Beck explained that Dallas Midtown is the 30-acre former Valley View site, within the much larger, 450-acre Dallas International District.
“There’s brand confusion right now because there are multiple properties that have named themselves Midtown,” Beck said. “There are probably two dozen businesses within this area that have named themselves Midtown. That’ll either change or not change over time … Our project here will be called the Dallas Midtown project.”
One thing was clear: What we’re not going to do, going forward, is call it Valley View.
