Dallas LAMA Property Tour | Iconic 60's Cabana Hotel Reborn as Affordable Housing

When the Cabana Hotel opened along Stemmons Freeway in 1962, it brought a dose of Las Vegas glamour to Dallas. Developed by the same visionary behind Caesars Palace and partly financed with actress Doris Day's money, the ten-story landmark hosted rock royalty on tour, from the Beatles and the Rolling Stones to Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix, and gave a young Raquel Welch her first job. The glamour did not last. By the 1980s the building had become a Dallas County jail, and over the decades that followed it cycled through a string of institutional uses before falling vacant and facing demolition.

Sycamore Development saw something worth saving. Join TAAHP's DFW LAMA for an evening with the team that led the building's revival into Cabana Design District, a $116 million adaptive reuse now home to 175 mixed-income residences, with 40 percent reserved as affordable housing for households earning between 30 and 80 percent of the area median income. The project was supported by roughly $41 million from the City of Dallas through the Design District Tax Increment Financing District and completed in partnership with Hunt Capital Partners.

Zach Krochtengel, President of Sycamore Development, will walk us through how the deal came together, the financing and design decisions behind repurposing a historic hotel, and the challenges of preserving original details while delivering modern homes. After the talk, attendees will tour the finished property firsthand. This is a rare chance to step inside a piece of Dallas history and see what adaptive reuse can do for affordable housing, plus the connections that come from an evening of networking with practitioners across the industry.

Hosted by TAAHP’s Dallas-Fort Worth Local & Municipal Affairs (LAMA) group, and with thanks to our event sponsors: