Pacific Elm Properties, led by Jonas Woods, is facing foreclosure on One Dallas Center at 350 North St. Paul Street. The building is scheduled to be auctioned at the Dallas County Courthouse on September 2 at 10 a.m., according to Roddy’s Foreclosure Listing Service. The Dallas-based company owns the lower portion of the property, which was renovated in 2014 by Todd Interests into offices and luxury apartments.
The firm reportedly defaulted on a $34.5 million mortgage that it assumed upon purchasing the property in 2015. However, there remains a possibility that Pacific Elm Properties and its lender could reach an agreement before the scheduled sale.
One Dallas Center was originally developed by Carrozza Investments in 1979 as a 30-story, 615,000-square-foot office tower. In 2012, Todd Interests acquired the building and later converted its top floors into luxury residential units.
This development follows another loss for Pacific Elm Properties, which last year lost part-ownership of Comerica Bank Tower at 1717 Main Street after Slate Asset Management took control of the property in May 2024. At that time, vacancy rates in Comerica Bank Tower stood at least at 36 percent.
Downtown Dallas has experienced high office vacancies due to remote work trends and companies relocating to newer buildings in Uptown. According to Partners Real Estate, vacancy rates in downtown’s central business district reached 34.7 percent at the end of Q2 this year; across all markets citywide, vacancy stood at about 25.3 percent (https://www.partnersrealestate.com/market-research/dallas-fort-worth-office-market-q2-2024-report/).
Attempts to convert older office buildings into residential properties have encountered logistical and financial hurdles despite initial optimism that such projects could reduce vacancy rates. Both Todd Interests and Pacific Elm have played significant roles in these conversion efforts: besides their collaboration on One Dallas Center, Todd Interests led the transformation of The National—a former office tower—into mixed-use space with apartments and retail outlets; Pacific Elm also converted part of Santander Tower into nearly three hundred apartments.
