By ADRIENNE NETTLES
Star-Telegram staff writer
Read Article Online
KELLER -- Former Southlake residents Martha and Doug Turner are giddy about their new apartment in Arthouse, Keller Town Center's latest mixed-use development.
The couple are the first tenants at the $30 million Arthouse.
The development, a mix of shops, apartments and office space, opened to the public Thursday with a block party in Town Center and a grand-opening ceremony that included a $5,000 giveaway to the nonprofit Community Storehouse social-service agency in Keller.
Mayor Pat McGrail and other city leaders were on hand to tour the first phase of Arthouse, one of two mixed-use developments under construction in Town Center. The $42 million Uptown project will be on 10 acres off Keller Parkway.
Town Center, the city's 352-acre master-planned development, includes Town Hall, apartments, stores and restaurants.
The target residents
Arthouse has been billed as a development that will attract empty-nesters and young professionals.
The Turners, both 55, said they were drawn by Arthouse's concept of being a place where people can live, dine and shop. So the couple held an estate sale, and gave up their 4,000-square-foot house and 1-acre lot in Southlake, and moved Oct. 17 into their two-bedroom, two-bath apartment in Arthouse. The Turners had lived in Southlake for 25 years.
"It's easier not to have to do the yardwork anymore or the upkeep on a house," said Doug Turner, a contractor who builds hotels and whose job requires a lot of travel. "We looked everywhere for a place, even in downtown Dallas, but safewise this is better, and we're not far from Southlake."
Martha Turner said their 1,300-square-foot fourth-floor apartment is ideal now that the couple travels more and their children are grown. She also has more time to shop, she said.
"You can walk to shopping and eat at nearby restaurants," Turner said. "It's going to be neat."
Lifestyle concept
One-bedroom apartments in Arthouse rent from $799 to $1,559 a month, two bedrooms go for $1,369 to $1,442, and three-bedroom lofts cost $2,191.
Arthouse, a Southern Land Co. development, also includes apartments referred to as artist enclaves, which allow tenants to have living space upstairs and a studio below, Arthouse officials said. The company, which has opened offices in Dallas, is known for its bold and unusual concepts such as the artist enclaves, said Jim Cheney with Southern Land.
"We want young professionals to also live here," he said. Arthouse has the elements to attract both young and old with its walking-distance location from a Starbucks, restaurants and shopping centers, he said.
"For this type of mixed-use development to work, you have to have all these elements," Cheney said. "We did all we could to make the apartments and artist enclaves feel like residences. And people are renting here because they're saying it's a lifestyle they can't get anywhere else but in Keller."