Luxury living debuts in Frisco’s Hall Park, with penthouses costing $21,000 a month

This story ran in the Dallas Morning News on Oct 12, 2023

Writer: Steve Brown

The first phase of a $500 million redevelopment of Frisco’s Hall Park business campus is opening its doors with luxury apartments as its initial draw.

The 19-story, 214-unit Monarch Hall Park apartment tower is part of an ambitious plan to revamp the decades-old office park on the Dallas North Tollway.

Construction started two years ago on the project, which includes a 16-story office tower and a 224-room boutique hotel. The new buildings overlook a 6.5-acre community park.

The office tower and hotel won’t open until next year.

“We’ve already signed 17 leases without really marketing the property,” developer Craig Hall said Thursday morning at the opening of the building. “This is the first step in a rebirth of Hall Park. This is going to be a real example of how you can change an area and how you can change with the times.”

Hall acquired the land for the business park when Frisco was just a farm town north of Dallas.

“Thirty-four years ago when we bought this property, there were fewer than 6,000 residents in Frisco,” Hall said. “Today there are 235,000.”

After building about 2 million square feet of offices, Hall decided to shift gears.

“We started out wanting to build the best office park in the United States,” Hall said. “About 2015 or 2016, I realized that office parks had a likelihood of becoming like malls.”

Many nearby Frisco residents weren’t on board with that plan.

“They were afraid we were going to build junky residential,” Hall said.

With rents starting near $3,000 a month, the Monarch Hall Park building is at the top of the Frisco rental market.

WDG Architecture designed the residential tower. The general contractor was Andres Construction.

The most expensive penthouse apartments at the Monarch rent for about $21,000 a month.

“I’ve heard the market rents that it is getting — let me tell you, it’s not junky residential,” said Frisco Mayor Jeff Cheney. “This was a very controversial zoning case in our city’s history by allowing residential into Hall Park. We knew that it was the right decision.”

Cheney said Frisco’s City Council agreed with Hall Group that the office park had to be more than just a place to work.

“Craig Hall has had over 20 years success with this office park,” he said. “It wouldn’t be successful 20 years from now unless we reimagined it. That is what is happening today.

“Hall Park is evolving.”

There are now three residential high-rises in Frisco.

The Twelve Cowboys Way apartment tower is part of the Dallas Cowboys Star in Frisco mixed-use project on the Dallas North Tollway. The 17-story rental building has 158 units.

And further north up the tollway in Frisco Station, the 25-story SkyHouse Frisco has 330 units.

Read the full article here.