Like any business venture, the goal of Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban’s Wonderview development is to make money.
But the 175-acre mix of sports facilities, corporate offices, residential and retail space also aims to revitalize a section of Dallas and help at-risk youths, said Joe Cavagnaro, director of real estate services for the Mark Cuban Cos.
“We hope it will fulfill the needs of the neighborhood and that other folks will follow us with more development,” Cavagnaro said. “It’s an investment in an area of Dallas where it’s sorely needed and way overdue.”
The 175-acre development is to include new
practice facilities for the Dallas Mavericks.
The project will cost $600 million to $1 billion and be developed during the next decade. Construction of the $4 million first phase is slated to begin this week, said Jeff Sanders, senior vice president for Richardson, Texas-based Hill & Wilkinson, the general contractor.
Wonderview’s office component — plans call for 300,000 to 500,000 square feet — will be anchored by a 180,000-square-foot headquarters for Mark Cuban Cos. The development will house practice facilities for the Mavericks, as well.
Plans also call for condominiums and apartments, medical facilities, a senior care center, movie production facilities, and 18 acres of walking trails and other green spaces. That acreage doesn’t count about 40 acres of ballfields and athletic facilities, including baseball, football, basketball, tennis, BMX biking, rock climbing, skateboarding, walking trails and “a little bit of everything,” Cavagnaro said.
Cavagnaro said Cuban doesn’t plan to use third-party financing for the project. “One of the things that allowed us to move quickly and get immense cooperation from the city and the neighborhoods was that Mark was involved and willing to put his money where his mouth was — his personal funds,” Cavagnaro said.
Cuban declined to be interviewed for this article.
Building the development in Dallas’ southern sector makes sense because Cuban already sponsors the Mark Cuban Heroes Basketball Center just west of the Wonderview site, Cavagnaro said. Wonderview’s location and its emphasis on sports will differentiate it from other mixed-use developments, he said.
The $4 million first phase, which will include four football/soccer fields and four outdoor basketball courts, will take about six months for Hill & Wilkinson to build. The initial phase will ultimately be replaced in the next 10 years as the project is built out, but the idea is to immediately establish a presence in the area, Cavagnaro said.
“Our first goal,” he said, “is to get out there as fast as possible to show everybody it’s here, it’s real, it’s coming.”
Bill Hethcock writes for the Dallas Business Journal, an affiliated publication.
