June 30, 2025

Makeover of Massive Site Near Design District Begins

By Leonardo Rosas, Dallas Business Journal, June 30, 2025

M2G Ventures envisions mixed-use future for site near Trinity River.

The makeover of a massive industrial and retail hub near Dallas’ Design District is about to start.

M2G Ventures LLC announced June 26 it will soon begin the redevelopment of the 740,000-square-foot Inwood Design Center, which spans 14 buildings across 38 acres at 1110 Inwood Road.

The Fort Worth-based real estate investment and development company purchased the property in February from Hines Interest LP, a Houston-based real estate giant. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Planned work at the center include upgraded façades and storefronts, curated branding and signage, enhanced parking and layered landscaping. Interactive art installations and 3D illusions will also adorn pockets of the campus in an effort to encourage walkability and discovery throughout the site.

The Design District and its surroundings continue to draw interest from developers because of the unique location near downtown as well as the huge inventory of industrial buildings ripe for repositioning and redevelopment.

“This modern evolution takes the property from industrial to a premier mixed-use campus at a location that bridges the Design District and Brookhollow submarkets,” Jessica Miller Essl, co-founder of M2G Ventures, said in a statement.

Essl and her colleagues expect the site to attract diverse tenants, including home and design companies.

In addition to the renovations, M2G is rebranding the site with two “distinct identities”: the Inwood Design District and Ace on Inwood. The two developments will “operate independently but harmoniously” within the shared district, according to the announcement.

The Inwood Design District component of the property has 630,000 square feet of infill space. Available spaces include 2,500- to 40,000-square-foot floor plates aimed at housing showroom and light industrial users with up to 24-foot clear heights, according to the announcement.

Ace on Inwood has a total of 109,233 square feet, with spaces ranging from 1,193 to 6,000 square feet. This component of the property is positioned for restaurants, retail, services, wellness and boutique concepts.

The project will start work in July and is slated to and for completion near the end of 2025.

The design team for the project includes Ibañez Shaw Architecture as architect, RSM Design for environmental graphics, Paper Kites Studio for landscape architecture, Katie Murray for art curation and Ramble Creative for branding.

Jake Sherrington and Victoria Pappas at SHOP Companies will lease the retail/showroom portions and Canon Shoults and Maddy Coffman at Holt Lunsford will lease the industrial component.

M2G has acquired 5.1 million square feet since it was founded in 2014 by Essl and her sister, Susan Miller Gruppi. Past projects under the firm’s belt include the Foundry District in Fort Worth, which sold in 2022 to North Carolina-based Asana Partners. M2G was also involved with the 180,000-square-foot mixed-use district of the Fort Worth Stockyards called Mule Alley and is development partner on the planned nine-figure expansion of the Stockyards.