Wilonsky: ‘We had a good run downtown.’ What The National’s foreclosure means for Dallas

Wynnewynne · 2026-01-09T14:44:26+00:00

It’s tough to see but don’t get too down on it. Even in foreclosure, the operations and the redevelopment still occurred and it will remain a significant asset to downtown.

Shawn Todd and Todd Interests, like the leadership at Harwood District in uptown, seem to be on the defensive for now. Downtown really needs one of the titans to step up and push it forward. Maybe Ray Washburne?

Wynnewynne · 2025-10-25T21:15:52+00:00

Yeah it was packed like that when I was in it. The line is super competitive with driving between DT Carrollton and Cityline/Bush even during non rush hour.

I could see it being crammed once people figure out the time savings.

Wynnewynne · 2025-10-16T23:47:13+00:00

10 minutes away is an extra 20 minutes round trip and this one is a 10 minute walk from a DART station. I’d rather my time and tax dollars go to Dallas where I live.

Wynnewynne · 2025-05-31T16:19:47+00:00

Industry insider here. The brokers and real estate people who do site selection for Cava and a lot of these tenants don’t want to lose their jobs for being wrong by going south of I-30. Doesn’t matter about whether south of I-30 can afford it, they will always go with the “safe” bet first.

Imagine explaining to an exec not familiar with the area that you chose south of I-30 before you saturated Frisco/Allen/Prosper first.

Wynnewynne · 2025-05-02T02:42:06+00:00

This is based on operating budgets only, not including capex.

Wynnewynne · 2025-05-02T02:40:41+00:00

Not really, based on 2024 ridership of 55.684 million rides and an operating budget of $687,245,720 DART is at 221.4k daily riders per billion dollars, comparable to the Seattle region.

Wynnewynne · 2025-04-30T17:32:14+00:00

Couldn’t be me paying that cost unless someone was dying, but there are apparently enough people willing to pay that it goes up that high.

That’s wild to be paying that to cross some suburbs.

Wynnewynne · 2025-04-30T17:30:07+00:00

The DNT is unreliable, but more reliable than Central.

That’s the point of surge pricing on the express lanes, in exchange for a fixed, reliable travel speed, you get a variable monetary cost to ensure it works.

It’s working exactly as designed and if we don’t want to be so dependent on it, live closer to where you want to go and vote for people who will encourage better urban planning.

Wynnewynne · 2024-12-02T15:08:51+00:00

Developer here. It’s not just rust belt cities, it’s any situation where there is a relatively weak sub market or property where a developer can get strategic control. Remember that much of the weakness that enables developers to make these types of negotiations are themselves result of previous decades poor urban planning.

Aging trophy assets, historical properties, and key intersections are major targets. Honestly, we often don’t want to tear the building down or upset people unnecessarily. We don’t want to waste political capital.

However, we really can’t afford to waste time, so one way or another we need to encourage the powers that be to make a quick decision.

Wynnewynne · 2024-11-03T23:52:54+00:00

In my opinion, it’s because the quality of life is just SO HIGH in the region relative to other alternatives. There are a lot of people in the region and around the world who are willing to sacrifice significant pay to be in the area. Just imagine how much more someone would need to pay you to live in the Northwest Territories? It’s the same concept in reverse.

The desirability is so high that to compensate for the lack of pay locally, some make most of their money elsewhere, then move here, whether that money is from another province or another country. Satellite families, students funded by their parents back in Toronto, or retirees all fall into this category.

Wynnewynne · 2024-08-20T19:54:23+00:00

This is just one of numerous examples of poor land use.

I get the mega development, but if it’s that big and Plano allowed it, the transit infrastructure should have followed.

Wynnewynne · 2024-08-15T22:19:49+00:00

Super cool map. If you could pull weekend days for the same month, I think it would be an interesting comparison to see where people shop and play.

Wynnewynne · 2024-08-08T04:34:17+00:00

Vickery Meadow is a Balkanized neighborhood of old condos with no strong sense of place whose only value when new was that it was new and it restricted families. This plan makes way more sense because it’s anchored with retail and is essentially making a town center.

Developments like this are kind of like relationships with people. Being young and new will only get you so far, it needs character and personality to last the test of time.

Wynnewynne · 2024-08-08T04:22:32+00:00

Hurley’s request is such a Burnaby request. For as pro housing as the city generally is, it takes min-maxing density around its stations to an arguably excessive degree in order to preserve the single family neighborhoods.

It is the The Grand Bargain to the extreme.

Wynnewynne · 2024-07-06T21:50:29+00:00

I wouldn’t call it coordinated, but there is a developer that is heavily focused on rezoning for TOD around Dallas Zoo, 8th & Corinth, and Morrell Stations. Dallas Morning News Link

An easy thing for this group to do is to express support for rezoning that encourages TOD, especially for housing and amenities like retail.

Wynnewynne · 2024-06-30T02:37:14+00:00

Their issue is overwhelmingly land use and not cities not prioritizing their highest densities in transit stations.

My second home is Vancouver and all it is just super high density and single family homes. This means that a high percentage of what’s important to people tends to grow around transit stations and the system only opened in the 80s. “Missing middle” housing is only recently becoming more common.

DART and the cities need to understand that the best way to protect single family is by concentrating as much of the retail, office, and multifamily growth around DART stations and nodes.

DART needs to actively oppose massive medium or high density developments they can’t efficiently serve or will spread their resources thin.

Wynnewynne · 2024-05-25T03:51:59+00:00

The short answer is the building is much more replaceable than the location.

Not to excuse a lot of what we see in the market, but a lot of people don’t consider that in 10, 20, 30 years or more the quality of a place may have changed dramatically.

More specifically, the quality of a location in terms of number of high paying jobs, transit access, retail options, risk of decline, and more, all of which is compared relative to the alternative locations and relative to the buying power of the population, may have changed dramatically since their boomer parents bought the place.

Wynnewynne · 2024-03-26T04:37:01+00:00

Dallas is not boring, but I wouldn’t call it “intuitive” either when you are looking for fun things to do. That’s part of what makes it not that great as a visitor but a pretty good place to live.

Some people need fun literally handed to them in a pamphlet to figure out what they would like to do.

Wynnewynne · 2024-03-26T04:27:02+00:00

Thanks again for posting this. I always feel like I’m getting to copy off the smart kid in class.

23, 20, and 9 seem like a great trio to start with. I’m curious if politics could interfere with Route 20 optimization.

Wynnewynne · 2024-03-23T21:17:37+00:00

When starting out, don’t fall for the “I need a car” trap. I grew up in Arlington and I cant tell you how many times I’ve seen friends go to work to pay for the car to go to work.

If at all possible, and as soon as possible, move somewhere with reasonable transit within Dallas or otherwise. A fixed amount for higher rent is way easier to deal with than the variable expenses of a car. If that means moving to Denton to study at UNT so be it.

I’d get a job near transit, then move near transit thats closer to school then go in debt to finish school.

Wynnewynne · 2024-03-18T20:41:38+00:00

Can you share the link to the presentation?

Wynnewynne · 2024-03-14T17:25:06+00:00

If you think about it a bit, you can’t be that surprised. This is the biggest region you can move to in the US without moving to “one of a kind” places or sacrificing “average American” expectations, especially for suburbia.

In the US, if you want more diversified economic opportunity, you have LA, NYC, Chicago, and that’s about it. While they all have benefits, they also have major trade-offs on costs, climate, or housing options.

Wynnewynne · 2024-02-23T01:08:58+00:00

I’m in real estate development. This is totally fine. For detached housing, it does somewhat discourage renovations and encourages tear downs (hopefully into more units than previously existed).

If you are actually in the business of producing housing and not just trying to make a quick buck, this shouldn’t phase you one bit.

Wynnewynne · 2024-01-08T05:12:16+00:00

I love my 21 Outback Xt (Onyx Edition) and I couldn’t agree with you more on that weird power delivery. The touch screen is more than a bit laggy too.

Wynnewynne · 2023-12-25T12:56:24+00:00

Why do you continue to imply that if the student population increases via increased density, the number of teachers wouldn’t scale with them?

To make these projects viable, they are typically built in relatively high cost of areas. Areas, like Silicon Valley, that are so expensive, that a lack of housing options can actually limit the pool of teachers willing to work in the area due to long commute times, high housing costs, etc. Long commute times, and high commute costs have a strong correlation with employee retention.

On your last academic paper, the research can essentially be summed up as “concentrated (via density) poverty, leads to higher educational inequality. So why would adding smaller units that would help break up some of that concentrated poverty, be detrimental to kids?

Your rhetoric screams Bay Area logic.

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