Dallas Loop Trail Project Chases Uptown-Style Growth

Dallas developers are increasingly betting on a 50-mile trail loop under construction across the city, hoping the Dallas Loop trail recreates the property boom the Katy Trail brought to Uptown over the past 25 years, according to Bisnow. The nonprofit Loop Dallas is building 11 miles of new connector paths to link existing trails into one continuous circuit running from Uptown through South Dallas to White Rock Lake. Developers including Trammell Crow Co. are already building major projects nearby and watching for further opportunities as the loop takes shape.

Dallas Loop Trail, Take Two

The Katy Trail, a 3.5-mile hike-and-bike path through the heart of Uptown, has driven property values in the surrounding area sharply higher over the past quarter-century. The nonprofit Friends of the Katy Trail estimates its economic impact on the city at more than $2 billion over the last decade alone. Trammell Crow DFW market leader Joel Behrens said amenities like the trail make the city “stronger, healthier, better” and predicted The Loop will be a major draw for both residents and tourism once complete. Savoy Cos. co-CEO Barrett Linburg said the trail system is one of the few features giving a genuinely walkable feel to parts of a metro built around car travel.

The Details

Dallas approved $16 million in funding in May for The Loop, which will stitch together the Katy Trail, the Trinity Skyline Trail, the Trinity Forest Spine Trail and other paths into a triangular, 50-mile circuit. The nonprofit overseeing the project has already spent more than $86 million over several years building out the connections. Trammell Crow’s $1 billion Knox Street project, a 1 million-square-foot mixed-use development adjacent to the Katy Trail, illustrates the kind of investment developers expect the expanded loop to attract — it includes more than 100,000 square feet of street-level retail, a 27-story luxury multifamily tower, 150,000 square feet of Class A office space and the market debut of an Auberge Resorts Collection hotel. Behrens said Trammell Crow wouldn’t have pursued the site anywhere else along the trail, only because the Knox Street district was already thriving before the firm bought in.

Zooming Out

Linburg pointed to Atlanta’s Beltline as a model: an economic impact analysis found that trail system drove $14.2 billion in private investment and drew roughly 26,000 new residents over 15 years, while generating $23 billion in economic output for the city last year alone. Dallas is already seeing early parallels near Trammell Crow assets like Trammell Crow Center, where trail-adjacent amenities have helped offset broader softness elsewhere in the office market. Linburg said the loop won’t make Dallas any less car-centric overall, but it will create pockets of walkability that command a real estate premium, much as the Beltline did in Atlanta.

Why It Matters

Property values along the Katy Trail show what durable demand for trail-adjacent real estate looks like: the West Village mixed-use development has gained nearly 55% in value over 20 years, while the Marriott Dallas Uptown’s value has jumped more than 76% since it opened in 2021, per Dallas Central Appraisal District data. That track record is drawing developers well beyond Uptown, even as the broader DFW office market works through its own uneven recovery. Landscape architecture firm TBG Partners, which helped design the new Loop Plaza pedestrian bridge in Victory Park, said projects like it are increasingly central to how the region plans growth, connecting the Katy Trail to the new Hi Line Connector segment of the loop.

What’s Next

Linburg cautioned that trail-driven development plays out over decades, not months, and that projects like Hillwood’s Ramble master-planned community are already incorporating trail connections with that long horizon in mind. Trammell Crow’s Behrens wouldn’t confirm the firm is actively pursuing new sites along The Loop but didn’t rule it out, saying future deals are likely to be “trail-adjacent, park-adjacent.” As more of the 50-mile circuit comes online, expect additional mixed-use, hospitality and multifamily announcements to follow its path, much as developers like Hillwood and VanTrust have already begun touting trail connections in their own projects this year.