{"id":222616,"date":"2025-09-13T04:13:23","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T04:13:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/222616\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T04:13:23","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T04:13:23","slug":"dallas-using-eminent-domain-to-get-downtown-property-for-new-convention-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/222616\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas using eminent domain to get downtown property for new convention center"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dallas is seeking to use eminent domain to acquire property near the old Dallas Morning News campus for its new convention center<\/a>, court records show.<\/p>\n

City attorneys filed a lawsuit this week against Charter DMN Holdings, a company owned by developer Ray Washburne, that says two offers to buy more than 36,000 square feet of land downtown near Young and Houston streets were rejected.<\/p>\n

\u201cFurther attempts to negotiate would be futile and to no avail,\u201d the lawsuit said. <\/p>\n

Washburne told The News via text Friday he is willing to sell the parcel to the city, but a ground lease with WFAA remains in effect. Representatives from WFAA and its parent company, Tegna, didn\u2019t immediately respond to an email for comment Friday.<\/p>\n

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Dallas\u2019 city attorney\u2019s office declined comment Friday.<\/p>\n

In April, the Dallas City Council approved two resolutions authorizing the city to spend up to $51.7 million<\/a> to acquire the old Dallas Morning News campus from Washburne. Dallas Central Appraisal District records show the city took ownership of the larger parcel, which includes part of the former newspaper headquarters and its parking garage, in June after the council approved spending up to $45.1 million for its purchase.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Washburne threatened to sell the downtown site to an unnamed data firm, citing delays in the city\u2019s design plans for the new convention center.<\/p>\n

The condemnation lawsuit targets a smaller, adjacent parcel \u2014 a parking lot between the parking garage and WFAA\u2019s television studio \u2014 for which the City Council approved spending up to $6.5 million. The lawsuit lists Charter DMN Holdings, WFAA-TV and The News\u2019 parent company, DallasNews Corp., among several groups that city attorneys describe as owning or having a claim to the property.<\/p>\n

City and project officials announced last year the effort to revamp the downtown convention center would need to extend onto the former Dallas Morning News property in order to accommodate the Texas Department of Transportation\u2019s plans to widen Interstate 30, updates to nearby Union Pacific Railroad tracks and to avoid building over the railway lines. The new convention center is planned to open in 2029 and is anticipated to cost more than $3 billion.<\/p>\n

The April resolution for the smaller parcel explicitly authorized the use of eminent domain if negotiations failed, which is why the city is now pursuing legal action.<\/p>\n

Washburne bought the old Dallas Morning News campus for $28 million in 2019. Under the city\u2019s deal, he retains ownership of the front portion of the campus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dallas is seeking to use eminent domain to acquire property near the old Dallas Morning News campus for…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":222617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,1596,14840,14841,80,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-222616","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-dallas-city-council","11":"tag-dallas-city-hall","12":"tag-politics","13":"tag-texas","14":"tag-tx","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115195045732643502","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}