A downtown Dallas office tower has returned to its lender after its owners failed to pay off a roughly $78 million dollar loan.
Investors of the Morgan Stanley Capital I Trust 2016-UBS9 took control of 2100 Ross Ave. following a foreclosure sale. The 33-story high-rise was previously owned by a partnership affiliated with Dallas-based Woods Capital and Pacific Elm Properties.
Wells Fargo was acting as trustee for the commercial mortgage-backed security. The winning credit bid was $52 million, according to California-based Assured Lender Services Inc., a foreclosure trustee firm that assisted in the process. The sale hadn’t been recorded in Dallas County records as of Oct. 15.
The Pacific Elm group originally owed $98 million against the property. Fitch Ratings classified the 2100 Ross loan as a $79 million nonperforming matured balloon loan in May, meaning the debt wasn’t paid off or refinanced before it was due.
At the time of auction, the partnership owed just over $78 million to the bank. The tower was recently flagged for foreclosure, according to Roddy’s Foreclosure Listing Service. The tower was valued at $99.4 million for tax purposes.
The 840,000-square-foot tower on the edge of the Arts District was built in the 1980s.
In 2015, a partnership headed by Dallas businessman Tom Dundon purchased the tower for $131 million from Atlanta-based Cousins Properties. Dundon, the former CEO of Santander Consumer USA, owns the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes and the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers.
Dundon listed the property in 2019. A partnership tied to Jonas Woods, a longtime business partner and friend of Dundon, took ownership. Pacific Elm Properties is an affiliate of Woods Capital. Woods was a founder of Pacific Elm Properties alongside developer Billy Prewitt.
The 2100 Ross building has seen key tenants leave the building in recent years. Insurance broker Lockton Cos. and its 400 employees announced last year that it was taking 100,000 square feet in Hillwood’s Victory One Commons in Victory Park. The move was set for early 2026.
Real estate giant CBRE’s lease at the high-rise expired in March 2022. Prudential announced in July that it was shifting its office space away from 2100 Ross to downtown’s Trammell Crow Center and Uptown’s 23Springs.
The property is 53% occupied, reports filed in county court show.
Pacific Elm Properties is behind Bank of America Tower at Parkside, which will be Uptown’s tallest tower once the building is complete. The building reached its maximum height — known as topping out — in mid-June.
March 2027 is the targeted completion date and the team is slightly ahead of schedule, Prewitt said earlier this summer.
Dallas’ central business district has more than 26.6 million square feet of existing office and a 36.5% vacancy rate — the highest vacancy rate in the Dallas-Fort Worth market, according to a third-quarter office report from Avison Young.