2 investors get $3 million to turn Dallas tower into hotel
City funding will aid in conversion of Dallas National tower
06/18/2003
By STEVE BROWN / The Dallas Morning News
Two businessmen have received almost $3 million in city funding to help turn an old Main Street office building into a luxury hotel. The 17-story former Dallas National Bank building has been mostly vacant for 10 years.
Robert Colombo and Rene Campos Jr. plan to convert the vintage office tower into a 90-room hotel with 4,000 square feet of retail space.
The investors hope to start work on the $11 million project late this year or early in 2004, Mr. Colombo said.
Jason Kindig / DMN
The Dallas National Bank tower was built in 1927.
"Right now we are in the process of defining who is going to be in the
project," he said. "We think it will be something exciting and unique
for the city."
Located midway between Neiman Marcus and the landmark Magnolia Building, the tower was built in 1927 to house Dallas National Bank.
In later years, there was a department store on the ground floor. And in the early 1980s, the upper office floors were remodeled by European investors.
In recent years, the ground floor – which also opens onto Commerce Street – has been rented to several small retail tenants, and there's a luxury apartment on the penthouse level.
Mr. Colombo said he hopes to make a formal announcement about the project and complete plans for the redevelopment soon.
The downtown tax increment financing district funds were approved last week.
Dallas City Councilwoman Veletta Lill said redevelopment of the old office tower will add to the resurgence on Main Street. The building faces the Stone Place pedestrian mall, which has been rebuilt with restaurant and retail tenants.
"It's in the center of downtown and has great access," Ms. Lill said. "People say that Dallas-Fort Worth is overbuilt with hotels, but there is a desperate need for more hotel rooms close-in to downtown.
"And people like staying in boutique hotels," she said.
The nearby Magnolia Building was successfully redeveloped as a 330-room hotel in 1999.
Mr. Colombo has experience in both the restaurant and hotel business. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he was one of the partners in the Sfuzzi restaurant chain, which got its start on McKinney Avenue. He went on to become a general manager of the Plaza Hotel in New York.
The partners are buying the building from local real estate partnership 1530 Main Street Ltd. The building is valued on the tax rolls at $519,500.
The public funding will be used to restore the façade of the building, improve the streetscape, clean up some environmental hazards and do part of the interior demolition.
E-mail stevebrown@dallasnews.com