Reunion Tower will finally be reopening "soon," with a slew of renovations planned to make it bigger and glossier. Judy Pesek, a partner at the design firm responsible for the project, laid out the planned renovations to a crowd gathered on the tower's observation deck.
The renovations will include a new ticket office at the base, including walls of latticed metal meant to evoke the geodesic nature of the tower; a 52-foot interactive electronic terminal that will ring the inside of the observation deck; and cables to the hard-to-see-past mesh barrier.
Also on the outside will be new high-powered telescopes, through which you can read the shirts of people entering the Perot a mile to the north. (The crowd was assured that you won't be able to make out anything name-tag sized or smaller.) Above the observation deck will be a new café/bar run by Wolfgang Puck, who already runs the tower's other restaurant, Five Sixty.
There's no word on when exactly the tower will reopen beyond that it's happening in the "fall." Price estimates are also nebulous, but Kleinert insisted that it will be less than the $23 million tag for Five Sixty. There was much talk about how the reopening of the tower would help revitalize downtown, including from Woodbine CEO John Scovell
"You've got to look at the whole package of what's happening downtown," Woodbine CEO John Scovell, who is helping oversee the project, told Unfair Park. He cited the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge as one of the developments helping to revitalize downtown, calling it a gateway to West Dallas.
Our favorite new feature is probably the new bar's ceiling, which will digitally reflect the weather outside. Think of a techno version of the Hogwarts Castle dining hall.
