City Wants Cityville at Cityplace Back on Track

Perhaps you recall: We had a pretty good back-and-forth back in December '09 over city staff's thoughts on Cityville at Cityplace, the mammoth mixed-use development that's been planned for the former Loews Cityplace site since forever. After Kroger asked for that variance to sell beer and wine closer to Alex W. Spence Middle Learning Center & Talented/Gifted Academy than city code allowed, city staff weighed in with its lengthy critique, summed up as: "This layout is auto-oriented and does not create an urban pedestrian experience on any of the street frontages."

Now it's back before the city council -- at least, the Economic Development Committee, which this morning will be told that to fast-track development it's getting $813,979 from the Cityplace Area TIF -- if, of course, it adheres to a few rules, among them getting its certificate of occupancy by December 31, 2013. (Which means the current opening-by date of 2012 is a little, ya know, off.) Says this morning's briefing, to get the dough -- which is but a fraction of a fraction of the $63.6 million the developer says it'll cost -- Cityville Dallas Haskell Limited Partnership has to build out at least 300 residential units (it promises 356) and 50,000 square feet of retail space (it pinkie swears it'll go twice that). And still on the books: Kroger and that L.A. Fitness.

Also scheduled to receive $815,930 from the Cityplace TIF: another apartment unit scheduled for the northwest corner of N. Central Expressway and Blackburn Street, next to the Mondrian. That's the tract o' land JLB Partners bought last December -- and, as expected, there's no retail in the developer's plans, which right now call solely for 294 units of residential.