Portion of Lake Highlands shopping center being demolished for townhomes

Barbara Reeves, a longtime real estate agent with Re/Max, remembers the excitement of her brokerage’s office environment shifting to a new purchasing centre in Lake Highlands about 1985.

The setting up is northeast of Tom Thumb at the intersection of Skillman Road and Audelia Street, regarded by its large tiled dome roof. In the decades that followed, she claimed the property — regarded as the Plaza Countrywide Bank shopping centre following its former anchor tenant — grew to become a neighborhood collecting spot where by tenants and community customers could help area corporations as a substitute of leaving their neighborhood.

“It was a place to go, a desired destination for the Lake Highlands persons at that time,” Reeves claimed. “It was an legendary-wanting thing, I mean, it was this attractive browsing heart that was just the biggest matter.”

Reeves gathered quite a few of all those previous tenants and local community associates collectively May perhaps 6 to share memories as the two-story building of the 100,000-sq.-foot middle along Audelia is being demolished for a 5.6-acre townhome development.

Tenants on web-site around the decades incorporated a dance studio, bakery, cafe and dentist’s place of work, amongst lots of some others.

“It’s form of unfortunate,” said Gerry Taylor, who labored in the middle for about 12 a long time with Bankers Economic Mortgage loan Group — a enterprise that eventually merged into LegacyTexas Financial institution, acquired by Prosperity Financial institution in 2019. “It was a incredibly vibrant space of Lake Highlands for very a even though.”

JAH Realty — which owns 34 searching centers across Dallas-Fort Well worth and Oklahoma Town — purchased the shopping center at the stop of 2019. The corporation has owned the adjacent Royal Highlands Plaza anchored by Tom Thumb given that 2007.

Immediately after the 2019 deal, the organization renamed its comprehensive 20 acres Lake Highlands Village, which include the Tom Thumb retail heart, the remaining 50,000-sq.-foot portion of the Plaza Financial institution center and the long term townhomes.

The owner is performing with a developer to develop the townhomes but has not signed a deal or finished the permitting method. Strategies phone for 85 townhomes for sale, and development is anticipated to start in 2023 and acquire about two decades.

“It’s definitely going to be good quality townhomes, but I are not able to specify the price tag point right now,” said Graham Irvine, handling director of JAH Realty.

Irvine mentioned the addition of other retail buildings in the community about the several years has established tough competitors. The two-tale setting up has been principally vacant around the previous few of a long time, with BBVA Compass operating a monetary middle there right up until 2018.

“Despite it becoming an beautiful solution, it just hasn’t experienced demand,” Irvine mentioned.

Reeves’ Re/Max workplace left the house in 2003. She explained she has mixed thoughts about the building getting torn down, but she is aware of as a serious estate agent that residential is now the most effective use for the website.

“The demographics have modified, and you know, men and women have adjusted,” Reeves claimed. “That’s not a go-to desired destination anymore.”