Although initially intended by developers to be a low-cost artist residency for artists, Flora Lofts is now a 41-story luxury tower with 600 high-priced residential units in the Dallas Arts District.
Located at the intersections of Flora and Pearl Streets, Flora Lofts was to be included within the larger Atelier Tower as 43 — later expanded to 54 — loft units priced between $598 and $769 and pigeon-holed for those employed in the fine arts, including painters, dancers, actors, and writers.
Today these same loft units are rented for between $1,720 and $6,255 a month, according to The Dallas Morning News (DMN).
As The Dallas Express recently reported, renting a one-bedroom apartment in Dallas would require a minimum salary of just over $53,000.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the annual mean wage for artists in Texas last year was $48,270.
Local organizations and nonprofits got excited about the project that would make the Dallas Arts District a vibrant home to artists.
“The idea of having an artist residency in downtown Dallas was a very poetic idea and obviously very needed — to make the Dallas Arts District an actual community,” explained Reid Robinson, former media and events manager for the Dallas Arts District Foundation, according to the DMN.
Spearheaded by developer La Reunion TX and architect Graham Greene and slated to open in late 2015, Flora Lofts was stalled by bureaucratic red tape until it was finally approved by the Dallas City Council in 2017.
Ultimately, despite Flora Lofts eventually receiving $4.5 million in state tax credits, $14 million from bonds issued by the Dallas Housing Finance Commission, $4.6 million from the City Center Tax Increment Financing District, and $2.5 million from City-approved general obligation bonds, it failed to be carried out.
Still, the City’s burdensome regulations and notoriously backlogged permitting department kept the Flora Lofts low-rent project from taking off.
“Flora Lofts was a terrific idea that everyone in the district is/was behind. Unfortunately, with complicated tax laws and building delays, it just couldn’t come to fruition,” as a statement received by DMN from Charles Santos, chairman of the board of the Dallas Arts District, explained.
Greene sold the property he had bought in 1995 to Atelier Apartments LLC in June 2018, the same month the Atelier Tower broke ground.
Yet, as developer ZOM Living CEO Greg West told DMN in an interview, construction was delayed well into 2019 as Greene remained involved in Flora Lofts and tried to raise more funds to get it off the ground.
“The market was going away. The tax credits were going away, and suddenly, the financing was not growing, it was shrinking. We got to the point where we had to proceed, or the whole deal would fall apart. In the end, we agreed we had to start building,” West told DMN.
The project to offer the lofts at a low cost to artists ultimately fell short by approximately $25 million, DMN reported.
“Graham [Greene] tried so hard to make it happen. He’s embarrassed it didn’t happen. He’s a wonderful person who tried to do a really good thing,” West told DMN.
Others involved in the project — Greene and board members of La Reunion — did not respond to DMN’s request for comment.
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