The Dallas Morning News
By Steve Brown
5:16 PM on Jun 20, 2023 CDT

A Switzerland-based developer has purchased a prominent downtown Dallas building site with plans for a high-rise apartment project.

Empira Group acquired the more than one-acre site on Pearl Street across from the Plaza of the Americas. The property is near downtown’s Arts District and across the street from a DART commuter rail stop.

The new owner plans to build a 375-unit residential tower with 35 floors. The building will include 7,300 square feet of ground-floor restaurant space and a 2,500-square-foot outdoor plaza overlooking a small park.

The tower will be Empira’s first North Texas development. Dallas-Fort Worth led the country in commercial real estate investment in 2022, topping all other major U.S. metros for commercial property deals for the third year in a row. More than $42.5 billion in commercial properties were sold in D-FW last year, according to the latest estimate from MSCI Inc.

“Dallas has been on our radar for several years as the city has rapidly transformed into a national powerhouse, attracting new residents, professional talent and businesses,” Empira chairman Lahcen Knapp said in a statement. “Our state-of-the-art development will provide new housing options to individuals and families who want to live within walking distance of the Dallas Arts District, shops, restaurants, parks and their workplace.”

Empira did not give a start date for the project. The building site at 711 N. Pearl was purchased from Spire Realty, which previously owned the nearby Bryan Tower and used the property for surface parking. Jones Lang LaSalle marketed the tract for sale.

The property is zoned for a maximum of more than 950,000 square feet of construction, according to JLL. Michael Swaldi and Jonathan Carrier brokered the sale.

Dallas architect GFF is designing the building.

Headquartered in Zug, Switzerland, Empira also has offices in London, Stockholm, Vienna, Luxembourg and Miami. The company recently acquired two development sites in downtown Miami where it is planning apartment projects.

Empira manages more than $8.9 billion in properties for its German and Swiss institutional investors.

The Pearl Street tower is just the latest in a series of planned residential high-rises in central Dallas. Developers are working on new apartment towers in the area stretching from the east side of downtown through Uptown to Dallas’ Turtle Creek neighborhood.

Along with the new buildings, developers are converting several older downtown Dallas skyscrapers into a combination of residential and office space.

Dallas-Fort Worth is the country’s fastest growing apartment market with more than 70,000 units on the way.