In late April, a public-private partnership with the city of Rowlett, Texas, officially broke ground on Bayside, a $1 billion, 262-acre mixed-use development anchored by an eight-acre blue lagoon that would be the first of its kind in this state.
Rowlett is 15 miles east of downtown Dallas, “and it’s not often that you find yourself on a peninsula on a lake outside a major metro area,” Kent Donahue, a local developer and managing partner of Bayside Land Partners, told the Dallas Business Journal.
Humphreys & Partners Architects is the firm behind Bayside’s master design.
Donahue has been working for three years on this project, located along the shores of Lake Ray Hubbard. The property was once called Elgin B. Robinson Park and had been owned by the City of Dallas Parks Department. Donahue purchased the land for $31.8 million.
Donahue is working with TxDOT and the North Central Texas Council of Governments to put in a new overpass on Interstate-30 to connect the two pieces of Bayside real estate.
Western Rim of Coppell, Texas, will soon begin Phase I construction on 845 luxury apartments, 600 townhouses and single-family homes, and 400,000 sf of retail and office space. Roadways on the north side of Bayside should be ready by September, and the first part of the project will start receiving residents and tenants in the fall of 2017.
The second phase, according to the Journal, would include a 500-room resort, a marina with 1,000 boat slips, 650 luxury apartments, 450 high-rise condos, 300,000 sf of entertainment space, 800,000 sf of office and retail space, and the blue lagoon.
The $1.1 million lagoon—essentially a giant swimming pool with 10 football fields worth of water—is fashioned after water attractions at other resorts, such as Cabo San Lucas in Mexico, and the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. Its 150-nozzle, 280-foot show fountain “can shoot water 200 feet in the air with LED lights,” the Journal reports. Miami-based Crystal Lagoons developed the lagoon’s filtration system. This would be Crystal Lagoons’ first lagoon in Texas, and its 12th in the U.S.
An open-air trolley system that would run around the lagoon’s periphery is also planned. Bayside also calls for walking and biking trails, dog parks, and a launch point for kite surfers.
“We are excited about what it means not only to Rowlett but the entire D-FW region and the state of Texas,” Jim Grabenhorst, Rowlett’s economic development director, told the Dallas Morning News. “It has the potential to be the front door to Rowlett.”
The latter phase should be ready by fall of 2018.
Related Stories
Mixed-Use | Feb 22, 2021
Mixed-use development will occupy former manufacturing industrial site near the Chicopee River
Paul A. Castrucci Architects is designing the project.
Reconstruction & Renovation | Feb 18, 2021
Connecticut’s Swift Gold Leaf Factory becomes a community job incubator
Bruner/Cott Architects designed the project.
Mixed-Use | Jan 21, 2021
3XN and IttenBrechbühl to design a wooden tower in Switzerland
The project will be located in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Mixed-Use | Jan 20, 2021
Union Square’s first ground-up development in two decades completes
MBH Architects, in collaboration with Page & Turnbull, designed the project.
Reconstruction Awards | Dec 29, 2020
The reenvisioned Sazerac House: A delectable cocktail that's just perfect for the Big Easy
The 51,987-sf Sazerac House is an interactive cocktail museum, active distillery, corporate headquarters, and event venue, all under one roof, next to the historic French Quarter of New Orleans.
Mixed-Use | Dec 28, 2020
BIG designs new mixed-use development in Harlem
The project, dubbed The Smile, has recently completed construction.
Urban Planning | Dec 6, 2020
Ford lays out plans for mobility innovation district in Detroit
Its centerpiece is an abandoned train depot whose architecture and decay reflect two sides of this city’s past.
Mixed-Use | Oct 19, 2020
Commonwealth Pier revitalization project begins construction in Boston’s Seaport
CBT, in collaboration with Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects designed the project.
Mixed-Use | Oct 2, 2020
Zaha Hadid Architects unveils 2 Murray Road in Hong Kong
The project reinterprets the structural forms and layering of a Bauhinia bud about to blossom.
Reconstruction & Renovation | Sep 30, 2020
SOM reimagines former Cook County Hospital into mixed-use destination
The project is the first phase of a proposed $1 billion redevelopment plan for the area in Chicago.