Plenty of Dallas police officers and firefighters live out of town; now, says the Arizona Daily Star this morning, they're buying investment property out of town too...actually, all the way out of state and in Tucson, Arizona, go figure. The paper doesn't know why the Dallas Police and Fire Pension Fund has bought 285 acres on the city's far West Side--between West Speedway and West Anklam Road in the Painted Hills area, if you know Tucson, and why would ya?--or what it plans to do with the land, only that the fund bought it for $27 million.
That's not a whole lot of dough to the DP&FPF: Its 2004 annual report, the most recent available on its Web site, says the pension fund has assets worth some $2.4 billion, with $384 million of that invested in real estate. And, indeed, if you go here you can see the two downtown Dallas condo-apartment projects in which the fund has invested. One's called The Beat at Southside Station and is located across from Dallas police headquarters; units there will range from $170,000 to $295,000. The other is called Thirty Thirty Bryan, same as its address, and will sell for between $250,000 and $500,000 per unit. I think it's not climbing too far out on a limb to predict those will be two of the safest properties in town; no wonder the fund says they're going fast.
As for the Tucson property, it's anyone's guess at the moment. It sure sounds nice, with plenty of "hills, ridges and washes." Right now it's zoned for houses on one-acre lots. Probably not apartments. Definitely not shopping centers. Maybe a retirement village for Dallas firefighters and police officers? --Robert Wilonsky