Uptown

NEWS RELEASES

Dallas Morning News
March 13, 2005
By: CHERYL HALL

It's not just a bluff for couple
With FW's help, bet on $350 million vision for Trinity may pay off

Tom Struhs calls it his harebrained idea. His wife and business partner, Elizabeth Falconer, calls it a near-financial-death experience. Now the couple believes it's their legacy.

"It" is Trinity Bluff at UpTown, a $350 million residential, restaurant and retail project on the edge of downtown being developed by Mr. Struhs' company, Trinity Bluff Development Ltd.

In the next seven years, plans call for 2,250 apartments, condos and townhouses on 30 rolling acres on an 80-foot bluff that overlooks the Trinity River. The project is three blocks from the old county courthouse and within walking distance of Sundance Square.

Such a rare picturesque setting in the midst of urbanity makes you wonder why someone didn't try this earlier.

Most thought it couldn't be done. Once the neighborhood for Fort Worth's wealthy, the northeast edge of downtown had become an unsavory mixture of crack houses, shacks, struggling businesses, vacant lots and dilapidated homes.

Mr. Struhs and Ms. Falconer, longtime Tarrant County luxury home builders, bought the entire mess from 180 owners. It took nearly three years and every spare dime they had.

"There were very scary times when we thought we were screwed," says the 49-year-old Ms. Falconer.

The couple pulled off the near impossible, thanks to extreme gumption, incredible luck and gentle persuasion.

They also got the kind of city guidance, speedy action and money infusion that many Dallas developers contend they can't get here.

For example, Fort Worth didn't just give the project tax incentives - the city paid for trees as part of a $1.8 million package of infrastructure improvements. It also allowed flexible zoning so that rules didn't hang up the revitalization.

"The politics here vs. the politics in Dallas is like night and day," says the 57-year-old Mr. Struhs. "You don't see bickering here. Support for economic growth starts at the top - with the mayor and the City Council."

By comparison: "You couldn't pay me enough to develop again in downtown Dallas," says Preston Carter, who developed Dallas' West End historic district and Lone Star Park racetrack in Grand Prairie. "I've tried it a number of times, and I'm tired of beating my head against a concrete wall. It makes me sick to see what goes on."

Mr. Carter was so smitten with Trinity Bluff that he came out of semi-retirement to act as its broker.

He brought in Lincoln Property Co., which expects to start its first phase of 300 apartments by May. A condominium tower and an apartment building are on the drawing board, he says. Several other major companies are also working on deals.

And Mr. Struhs and Ms. Falconer are breathing much easier.

Extreme gumption

"We were protected by the umbrella of ignorance," Ms. Falconer says. "If we'd known how difficult this was going to be, I'm not sure we would have undertaken it."

Then again, they might have. They are central-core believers.

In 1999, they gave up a home on seven acres in Colleyville to live in a 4,200-square-foot, three-story duplex they built on Pecan Street near Bass Hall. Across the street, they built Pecan Place at! UpTown, nine one-story flats priced at about $550,000.

In early 2001, Mr. Struhs and Ms. Falconer began to accumulate the property next to Pecan Place for UpTown. They created a huge map of who owned what and went to work.

By midyear, they had used their last $50,000 in savings, but their acquisition map still looked like a checkerboard. They thought a Dallas family was going to finance several key parcels, but the family backed out after 9-11.

No lender would touch the deal.

Incredible luck

Tom Struhs says his life is a series of fortuitous coincidences.

In 1992, the home builder went to a cocktail party at La Tour in Dallas where he knew only the hosts. After dinner, the partiers headed out for drinks. Mr. Struhs got on the wrong elevator, joined another group and wound up at the wrong club. That's when he met Rudy Renda.

Ten years later, Mr. Renda was looking for downtown housing for his son and called Mr. Struhs out of the blue. Instead of buying a condo, Mr. Renda invested $2 million to become a 50-50 partner with Mr. Struhs in Trinity Bluff Development.

The money was used to close the deal on those key parcels.

Even then, the company still had 90-plus homes left to buy.

Gentle persuasion

"The homes were trapezoids and parallelograms falling down around their ears," says Ms. Falconer. But the homeowners were reluctant sellers because others had tried to buy them out for next to nothing.

"Many didn't speak English," says Mr. Struhs. "And I didn't speak enough Spanish to prevent the door from being slammed in my face. So I hired a Hispanic Realtor, and we went door to door. We still got doors slammed in our faces, but not as many."

Slowly but surely, Mr. Struhs won them over.

One of the last holdouts was a couple who reared 15 children in their home. Rather than push, Mr. Struhs scheduled several family meetings.

"After more than a year of long talks, they decided to sell it to me because I was going to pay them enough money to build a nice house. So I said, 'Look, I'm a builder. I can make sure that it's built properly.'"

And he did.

That story and other anecdotes drifted back to city officials and staff, who were dumbfounded when Mr. Struhs and Ms. Falconer showed them their completely covered plat map in November 2002.

City cooperation

"The very first thing they did was expand the Central Business District to encapsulate our whole development," says Mr. Struhs. "Then they initiated a game plan, telling me exactly what to do - A, B, C, D - to get economic development support and downtown zoning for our property. They were a real shot in the arm."

The city also suggested that they contact the city's leading preservationist group, Historic Fort Worth.

UpTown is on hallowed ground, nestled between Pioneer's Rest Cemetery and the old courthouse. The Chisholm Trail went through it.

"We had to convince Historic Fort Worth that it was in the city's best interest to let me take all of this blighted poverty out of there," says Mr. Struhs.

"From the staff at the city, to the politicians, to the historians, to the people who live in the city, our whole goal is to have growth but not lose what is wonderful - the big-city, small-town feel."