Museum Tower’s New Year Celebration: Dallas Is Loving Museum Tower

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MT openingMuseum Tower is complete. No more hard hats, workboots, no sawdust. And on January 10, the stunning high rise opened it’s doors to an elegant, tasteful celebration that was more an open house than a big splash opening. The developers did not land via helicopter on a roof-top pad as Ross Perot, Jr. did when the W Residences opened. There were musical performances by the Dallas String Quartet, Zach Hess and Charlie Kim on the piano, Carlos Guedes on the 38th floor. Delicious catering was crafted by Lombardi Family Concepts, wine and champagne flowed everywhere. I felt as if I were in New York City next to Lincoln Center. It was a New Year Celebration for Museum Tower, a soft launch for a building that has been struggling with an unintended consequence of it’s quest to be the most energy efficient residential high rise in the southwest: the glare that is bouncing off those curved windows and frying the Nasher. Like a performance, event cards were passed out at the door:

Museum Tower is owned by the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System which represents more than 9,200 Police Officers, Firefighters, retirees and their families.

On Thursday, the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System board discussed an offer to sell the tower along with its troublesome glare to Dallas developer Jack Matthews, who has apparently offered to buy majority ownership of the tower from the Police and Fire Pension System. Matthews is an old hand at teaming up with the city on projects, from his Southside on Lamar to the Dallas Convention Center’s Omni Hotel.

I asked several Museum Tower officials if they thought the Matthews deal would fly.

“I think the Mayor wants it to fly,”  is basically what I heard. It appears Mayor Rawlings may have been the one to bring Matthews into the discussion.

Bernadette and Candy

Bernadette Schaeffler & Moi!

But Thursday night, it was all about celebrating Museum Tower. Robbie Briggs and his lovely wife Nancy were there with most of the company: Briggs Freeman was christened the local and national real estate partner with Museum Tower. We wandered in the three designer units by Emily Summers, Anne Schooler and Marco French. The mood up on the 38th floor was one of admiration and awe as people took their drinks to the balconies and toasted the beauty of the city below.

I chatted up one guest in the bedroom of the Schooler designed unit, and found he was indeed thinking about buying.

“These are beautiful, stunning, best location ever” he told me. “They really cannot compare to anything else.”Museum Tower lights

And then I had to ask: does the Nasher glare issue scare you at all away from buying one?

This is what he said (and asked me not to use his name): “Let me say I would have my attorney, or an attorney, pour over the contract carefully and make sure I as a buyer will have no liability from any future litigation. There is that concern, yes. But I think this is the best time to get a good deal, honestly, and it’s a short window of time before they resolve it. And they WILL resolve it.”

Coming up: Scoop from the 19th floor.Museum Tower pool

 

 

Candy Evans, founder and publisher of CandysDirt.com, is one of the nation’s leading real estate reporters.

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