The family partnership behind Bayside District Partners LLC has named a new developer to the proposed $1 billion, 262-acre destination-style development near Lake Ray Hubbard.
The new developer, Tom D'Alesandro, has more than 25 years of experience overseeing large prominent projects, and will help make Bayside a "premier Texan lake resort destination," said Tyler Kruse, principal at Bayside District Partners, which is comprised of the Kruse family and billionaire brothers Dan and Farris Wilks of Cisco-based Wilks Development.
"Tom has a notable track record of leading complex real estate projects across the U.S. and internationally," Kruse said in a prepared statement.
The proposed Bayside mixed-use development is expected to become a destination upon completion with a resort-style lagoon geared at bringing North Texas residents to the shore of Lake Ray Hubbard for the ultimate stay-cation or meeting spot.
Click here to see renderings of the proposed resort and 503-room hotel.
D'Alesandro, who has worked on 60 income-producing office, retail, industrial, hospitality and residential projects totaling nearly 17 million square feet of space and representing investments of $3.5 billion, took some time to chat with the Dallas Business Journal and his plans moving forward with Bayside:
Q: Why did Bayside need a new developer overseeing the project?
I was not a party to that decision, but, from what I have been told, they felt they wanted someone that had more demonstrated experience doing complex projects. This project is very complex with residential, a hotel, retail space and recreational activities. When the partnership moved from a conceptual phase to more implementation, the investors in the project felt more comfortable with a developer that has built similar projects.
Q: What does that do for the project's progress and next steps?
We are working on putting together built-out costs. As someone coming in that's new, I need to come up with new estimates on everything. We are refreshing our models to come up with the new numbers. It could still be in the hundreds of millions or upwards of a billion, but who knows. A lot of this will be done in phases. We will get started on the 503-key hotel that will anchor the other uses in a large respect making it a resort destination and conference operation along seven miles of Lake Ray Hubbard shoreline. We are going to maximize that special opportunity, but we haven't announced a hotel flag. We have an agreement, but we are vetting the concept and making sure it works before we announce the flag.
Q: Has the project been delayed at all because developers have changed?
Projects like this take a lot longer than people think. None of those buildings have been designed yet. On the north side of Interstate 30, we already have more than 600 apartments built by Western Rim and contracts with two homebuilders, Meritage Homes and K. Hovnanian Homes, to bring single-family, detached homes to Lake Ray Hubbard. We also sold a site for a limited service hotel — but all of that is on the north side.
Q: What kind of projects do you plan to start on after the full-service hotel?
Our goal would be to have residential, retail and entertainment following the hotel, which we could break ground on sometime next year.
