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City officials approved new zoning in June for an apartment project in west McKinney that could reactivate the former Globe Life headquarters campus as a mixed-use development.
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McKinney City Council members approved a multifamily zoning request for the 14-acre property during a June 2 meeting. The action comes after McKinney’s Planning and Zoning Commission voted to recommend approval in May.
David Craig, founder and CEO of Craig International, spoke as the project applicant during the meeting. He said the zoning request is “one component” of a “very exciting mixed-use project” that he is “thrilled about.”
The new apartments will be located next to the former Globe Life headquarters campus at 3700 S. Stonebridge Drive.
“It’s my intention to transform this corporate campus into a thriving mixed-use development with three components,” Craig said.
Zooming out
The campus will include 14.2 acres of multifamily development, 33.5 acres of office space and nearly 10 acres of retail space, Craig said. The existing office building on site has 300,780 square feet of net rentable space, he said.
The property zoned by council members is an undeveloped piece of the former Globe Life campus that Craig International currently has under contract, said Randy Hullett of McKinney-based law firm Abernathy Roeder Boyd Hullett, on behalf of the applicant. Project officials will submit a site plan for the apartment project later this month, Craig said. Current plans for the development include construction of 368 multifamily units, he said.
Zooming in
Planning Director Lucas Raley said the property is surrounded on all sides by office, multifamily or commercial uses. The property was previously zoned as a planned development district in 2003 as part of the Globe Life campus, according to city documents.
Apartments could be developed by right under the property’s current zoning after Senate Bill 840 passed. SB 840 requires that certain cities permit multifamily and mixed-use residential developments in all nonresidential zoning districts.
After meeting with city staff, project officials determined it would be more appropriate to request a straight “MF-36” zoning district with no variances, Hullett said.
City staff recommended approval of the request after reviewing internally, Raley said.
“We felt like this portion of the Globe Life campus we see makes sense for the proposed land use of multifamily, given that it can support the surrounding uses on this campus and adjacent campuses in this area,” he said.
