New Owner for Landmark Interurban Building; House of Blues to Follow

By Georgiana Mihaila, Associate Editor

This month’s Dallas County foreclosure auction brought a new owner for the downtown landmark Interurban Building. A California investor affiliated with Bridge Partners paid $11.5 million for the 95-year-old red brick building. Constructed in 1916, the property served as a rail and bus station, with offices on the upper floors, but stood vacant for many years before being redeveloped.

The previous owner, real estate partnership Dallas Interurban Ltd., converted the historic building into 118 loft apartments with ground-floor restaurant and retail space in 2005. In June, the partnership defaulted on an $18.2 million loan, and lender Keycorp Capital posted the building for foreclosure.

Another historic building about to see a change of owners is the home of the House of Blues. Recently put up for sale, the building at 2200 N. Lamar St. in Dallas has an asking price of $18.5 million, according to the Dallas Business Journal, and Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services has been awarded exclusive listing rights for the property.

Built in 1913, the property spreads over 1.1 acres at the crossroads of Dallas’ West End and Victory Park, and is known as the former White Swan Building—so named after the coffee processing plant that anchored it in the 1920s.

The current tenant, House of Blues, a wholly-owned company of Live Nation, has a strong presence there and a 15-year lease that is not up for renewal until April 2021. Real estate documents show that, since opening in the three-story White Swan Building in 2007, House of Blues has invested more than $11.6 million in tenant improvements, the Dallas site moving up to the No. 2 spot in the House of Blues’ chain of 13 locations.