December 17, 2019 - TRA Newswire -

The Dallas Area Rapid Transit board has approved an agreement for more transit-oriented development (TOD) around the highly successful SMU/Mockingbird Station in Dallas. A master development agreement, ground lease and related agreements are to be signed with Dallas’ Trammell Crow Company. The agreement includes a 99-year lease to be established at fair market value.  

DART looked at proposals from multiple developers before selecting Trammel Crow in January 2018. Crow will construct an underground parking garage that includes commercial and residential towers on the existing surface parking lots at the station.

DART renamed the station, which opened in 1997, from Mockingbird to SMU/Mockingbird earlier this year. The Southern Methodist University campus location is located across from the rail stop, one of the busiest in the DART system.  The station was the first with transit-oriented development of retail, restaurant and an apartment complex that opened eighteen years ago. The SMU Express shuttle service connects the DART station to the university campus and also to the President George W. Bush Presidential Library.