An ambitious redesign of Dallas’ tallest tower got a thumbs up from key stakeholders Tuesday — but not without making some concessions.
Last year, developers Mike Hoque of Hoque Global and Mike Ablon of PegasusAblon announced their intentions to buy and redevelop Main Street’s Bank of America Plaza. That bid could come to fruition with the city considering a sprawling plan — and incentives to match — to revitalize the property following the imminent departure of its namesake tenant.
The pair is seeking the 72-story, green light-trimmed tower under the name 901 Main PAHG Partners, LLC, which lists Ablon as its registered agent. The newly formed company has submitted a $409 million redevelopment plan with the city, and Ablon made his case for it at a Tuesday joint meeting of the boards of the Downtown Connection Tax Increment Financing (TIF) District and Downtown Dallas Development Authority (DDDA).
The boards, which oversee the surrounding area, ended up unanimously approving a recommendation in favor of the proposed $98 million incentives package, but not without an amendment. After some back-and-forth, a compromise between the boards and Ablon was reached to recommend an additional $5 million be available to accommodate requested changes to the plan’s parking garage.
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“We’re trying to go all in,” Ablon said at the meeting.
The plan comes as Dallas tries to solve the real estate vacancy problem created by the pandemic and an increase in remote work. And while most cities, and competing neighborhoods within D-FW, are contending with this in some capacity, the problem is more pronounced downtown. Vacancy rates for downtown office space reached 27.1% in 2024, compared to sub-20% in Uptown, and property values have stagnated or faltered.
There are a variety of reasons for this, and the city has prioritized revitalizing downtown on multiple fronts, including a glitzy new convention center just south of Bank of America Plaza.
With tailwinds from convention center foot traffic, attractive street-level additions and 901 Main PAHG’s proposed upgrades to the main structure, “Now we’ve created an office building that is actually leasable,” Ablon said.
The plan submitted to the city includes:
- Reducing office space from 1.8 million square feet to 1.5 million square feet
- Converting and adding 280 new four-star or higher hotel rooms and hotel amenity space
- Building a new adjacent glass and steel structure to house a hotel lobby and ballroom
- A new 1,115-space parking garage on top of what is now a surface lot across the street
- Connecting the new structures with a skybridge across Main Street
- Street-level retail and restaurants
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Members of the boards expressed excitement for the plan, but had several concerns about the incentives package.
DDDA vice-chair Billy Prewitt, also newly the CEO of Pacific Elm, pointed out that, while office vacancy is a problem, the city was entering new territory subsidizing tenant improvements and leasing commissions. Such moves risked “tilting the playing field” for certain players rather than lifting all of downtown, he said.
However, the boards were able to overlook that issue, as well as skepticism around the plan’s budgeted valuation of $172 million for Bank of America Plaza.
Their main issue was with the parking garage, which they felt wasn’t aligned with the Downtown Dallas 360 Plan’s emphasis on mass transit and de-emphasis on passive-use structures like parking garages.
It’s possible to add things like residential or office space on top of a parking garage after it’s already been built, and Ablon said that would be the intention regardless of what the proposal explicitly outlines, pointing out that initial renderings showed just that.
However, adding on top requires the garage to have certain structural capabilities, and board members feared that as the project went on, cost-efficiency would take precedent.
At a certain point in the meeting, it seemed Ablon’s proposal might not get approved, and he inquired about whether he could motion to table the meeting rather than have a disapproval go into the record. While the proposal would still be able to advance to the city council, a thumbs down from the TIF and DDDA boards could have been a substantial black mark on the project.
Ablon tried to reassure the boards that the garage would not remain simply a garage, but he urged them against making those stipulations explicit in the incentives deal.
“This is an enormous lift, and to add another requirement for another building on top of that, at a certain point … I don’t want us to be pushed out from doing the project, if it becomes too much,” he said.
Prewitt finally motioned to approve the incentives package with an amendment: an extra $5 million would be available, and in exchange, the parking garage would be built to accommodate the building load of 200 residential or hotel units on top. While that doesn’t guarantee those units will ever get built, the garage would be able to support them if they come about.
“We just want to know that we’re not boxed out from ever having something on top of the garage,” Prewitt said.
What’s next?
The plan heads to the city’s economic development committee on Oct. 6, then city council plans to hear public comment and vote on incentives on Oct. 22.
Securing the incentive plans and the board’s approval Tuesday was key for the project. Had Ablon and the boards not reached a compromise then, 901 Main PAHG would have had to choose between going to the city council with a stain on the project, or continuing discussion but pushing out potential city council approval by months.
With a looming property acquisition deadline of Sept. 30, 2026 as a stipulation for incentives, that could have put them in a bind.
“I’m trying to thread the needle here,” Ablon said.
Now, the project can begin in earnest. If the city council approves the incentives package and city staff recommend it, the project can expect to hit certain milestones essentially yearly in advance of a substantial completion deadline of Sept. 30, 2032.
For more casual observers, the next step after it makes it through the city will be finding out which four-star or higher hotel will make a home in Bank of America Plaza. 901 Main PAHG has to secure that before the acquisition deadline next year.