I wish Miami had a Virgin — making reservations there for NAREE (which starts tomorrow yeah!) was a little cray cray. But it looks like we rate even more than Miami, because Florida-based Virgin Hotels has decided to open the state’s first Virgin Hotel here in the Dallas’ Design District. The first Virgin Hotel is taking reservations in Chicago, and others are on the books for New York City, of course, and Nashville.
We had heard back in 2013 that the company, a hospitality brand that combines service, value, and a seamless hotel experience, is an offshoot of Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, which brings us the same stuff on Virgin Airlines. The company was looking at downtown and Uptown. The Dallas Design District was a no-brainer. What started as an industrial, warehouse area that became home to one of the busiest design district in the country — the hot spot for wholesale sales to interior designers and exclusive furniture manufacturers — is now one of the hottest places to live in Dallas. There are more restaurants, apartments, and even some retail. Come six p.m. everyone is out walking their dogs. I still remember Jim Lake, Jr. telling me how he found bullets in the walls of a crummy warehouse he bought that was holding women brought here as sex slaves. To say it was a rough neighborhood is an understatement, but then, everything in Dallas seems to be getting rough.
The Dallas Design District was originally developed in the late 1940s for industrial use by Trammell Crow Sr. Crow began building the exclusive designer spaces and by 1980, the Design District lived up to it’s name: it was a hub where decorators had exclusive access. Soon Lake and other were catering specifically to the space needs of designers, as with the International Building, which opened in 2006.
Then Lake launched a gutsy experiment: he built a new animal down in this gritty part of town: apartments called Trinity Lofts. The idea was to give creative people a live/work/play scenario where they could create — welders, artists — below where they lived. Beeler Guest Owens Architects converted the 1967 Lee Optical building at 1403 Slocum into 64 loft-style apartments sitting atop 26,000 square feet of first-floor showrooms. Then two new buildings fronting Dragon Street came up, housing 14 units combining a first-floor showroom or office with living quarters above.
It was the same recipe that had worked in SoHo: taking interesting old space, creative tenants, a mix of interesting architecture, affordable lease rates and a part of town that welcomed them. No surprise Richard Branson chose the Design District. FYI, there are single family homes down there, too.
According to the press release, the hotel chain backed by Virgin Group will open a 200 room chamber hotel on Hi Line Drive at Turtle Creek Boulevard in 2018.
Chambers?
Virgin doesn’t do guest rooms. They do “chambers”. Each guest chamber comes with a sliding privacy door that closes off the Dressing Room from the Lounge. (I take it the lounge is where the sleeping etc. takes place.) This offers an extra later of sound protection between the bedroom and the hallway. I experienced this at the Hotel Valencia in San Antonio, and it really was great: you enter a sitting room before the actual bedroom, and it was a much quieter experience.
Virgin also promises to “come to the aid of guests who are tired of being ripped off. At all Virgin Hotels, we offer amenities and services that are a right not a revenue stream. Free Wi Fi operating at 62.7Mbps+, no cancellation fees as long as you call before midnight, early check-in or late check-out without penalty, and the mini bar offers prices at street level. Plus each night, all hotel guests can indulge in a complimentary Social Hour, where all drinks (top shelf included) are on the house.”
The hotel is being developed with Dunhill Partners, which bought 33 acres and about 700,000 square feet of buildings in the Design District, Vinculum Partners, and the Crosland Group. Which makes me wonder what else is coming down there.
Besides chambers, the hotel will feature a rooftop terrace with a pool, gym and spa.
”I could not have found a more perfect hotel for the Design District and everything it offers the City of Dallas than Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Hotels,” Dunhill Partners CEO Bill Hutchinson said in a statement. “It will be the heartbeat of the hottest entertainment district and the biggest jewel in our crown.”
Dunhill partners and a group of investors bought the Design District properties last fall with plans to further develop the area. I think it’s one of the most exciting, fastest-growing parts of Dallas. And happily, we now have a Virgin down there.
