LH Press Library
Movin' On Up (Part 2 - Oak Trail Villas)
New developments look to put Lake Highlands on the map as Dallas’
premier
place to put down roots
The Advocate, by Kris Scott
April 2005
Oak Trail Villas of Lake Highlands/Trimark Landing
Trimark Realty Investments Inc.
Near corner of Forest and Abrams
Bill Baldridge’s company, Trimark, leases around 7,000 units in Texas and Tennessee. But nothing consumes his time and attention right now as much as his Lake Highlands project.
Last year, this father-of-four native Dallasite bought two apartment complexes and 78 town homes from a Boston hotel operator after a friend alerted him to the deal.
“He knew I bought properties that had issues,” Baldridge says, “that I could turn them around and clean them up.”
And these were most definitely those types of places, say those who live in the area. It wasn’t uncommon to hear gunfire at night. The crime and transitory nature of many renters had many longtime residents packing up and heading for greener pastures.
When Baldridge met with residents and told them of his plans to renovate and rid the apartments of undesirables, they were “cynical,” says Emory Powell, two-time past president and board member of the Forest Meadows Neighborhood Association.
“There had been prior owners with those same plans, and no one else had succeeded,” he says.
But so far, Baldridge has made good on all his promises. In the first two days of ownership, he filed 75 eviction notices. By last fall, the apartments were down to 5 percent occupancy.
“I really forced anybody who didn’t want to follow my rules to leave,” he says. “It was just a matter of putting together a plan and implementing it.”
The two apartment complexes – formerly called Forest Springs and Fall River – have been combined and renamed Trimark Landing. They’ll be one gated community of more than 500 units, and residents will have to pass a criminal record background check, have good credit and agree to abide by Trimark’s rules. There will be a business center, fitness center and activities center. Baldridge also wants to attract families to the complex, so he’s putting gin a kids’ club.
“Essentially, it’s a place for children to go that will b community-sponsored, to do things like have movie nights, to acknowledge kids that get good grades in school, to tutor kids that need it,” he says.
Around the corner from Trimark Landing are the Oak Trail Villas of Lake Highlands, 78 town homes that Baldridge is renovating and updating with the help of neighborhood interior designers Vicki White and Kimberly Chumlea.
“We’ve reconfigured the town homes to make them more livable today,” Baldridge says. “We opened up the kitchens so they’re light and bright. Put in granite countertops, hardwood floors, travertine floor tile, crown molding, new roofs, new water heaters, double-insulated windows and doors – basically, the only thing we left were the studs.”
Between the apartments and town homes is a 1.7-acre green space that will become a residents-only park with a pond and picnic pavilion, surrounded by a wrought iron fence. Nearby, landscape architect Harold Leidner is designing a pool for Oak Trail’s residents.
It’ll be months before all the renovations are completed, but Baldridge already is confident of the outcome, and, though he’s not a neighborhood resident, says he’s “totally bought into the community.”
And Powell and other residents of Forest Meadows and other surrounding areas say they’re already pleased with Baldridge’s efforts.
“We like what he’s doing. In the long term, we hope it will be a positive contribution to our neighborhood,” Powell says.
And if it is?
“It all propagates,” he says. “One guy upgrades on place, the next guy upgrades the next place, and the whole area starts coming back around to what it was.”
Baldridge, who says the community has been supportive, agrees.
“It’s really beautiful land, a great community and a great location. And I think most of the growth and development in Dallas is going to be east of Central in the next five to 10 years,” he says, adding: “I think the dominoes are really starting to fall.”
For information, visit trimarkrealty.com. To view photos of the town homes, visit oaktrailvillas.ebby.com.
Courtesy of The Advocate
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