A six-story building on a site at Oak lawn and Blackburn in Dallas is set to be demolished.
No. This is not 1963, but 2013. The doomed structure is an office building located roughly where the east end of the upper practice field was on the old Jesuit campus. For the past 45 years or so this location has been known as Turtle Creek Village.
Lincoln Property Co., a well-known Dallas developer and investor last year bought Turtle Creek Village, a 13 acre mixed use retail and office development since the late sixties. The property was once about three-quarters of the old Jesuit campus bounded by Oak Lawn, Blackburn, Turtle Creek Blvd. and Irving Ave. This April 24, the company announced places for a "huge makeover" that will include a gourmet grocer The Fresh Market.
During our senior year, construction was already taking place on four acres of the lower field of what became 21 Turtle Creek Square, a high-rise high-dollar apartment building to rival older similar locations along Turtle Creek Blvd.
The rest of the land was sold to investors, and the old school was demolished during 1964. Unlike newer old buildings that are often imploded, it was torn down brick by brick, and the demolition took over six months. The estimated number of bricks was 2 million, enough for one hundred houses. In 1966, Turtle Creek Village was conceived, and was about fully leased and operating by the end of the decade. Among the tenants was the well known Mario’s Restaurant, which moved from Lemmon and Wycliff.
Now it is having a re-do. Given the activity in the Oak Lawn area and across the creek in what is now know as Uptown, it should be a success.
As for the old school, all that is left is a commemorative plaque on a pilaster in a parking lot near Oak Lawn Avenue placed there in 1992.
Some articles in the Dallas Morning News and other news sources can be found here. And many thanks to Chris Bird for bringing them to my attention.
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