Downtown Arlington Gets a Walkable Boost With Urban Union District Expansion — Wider Sidewalks, Chic Lofts and New Restaurants

Arlington’s Urban Union district is about to undergo a huge expansion. One that will connect the core of Urban Union with Vandergriff Town Center. It includes a mixed-use development that will bring new restaurants, stores, loft apartments and offices to Front Street in Downtown Arlington.

Dodson Commercial Real Estate joined its largest new tenant Sutton Frost Cary to celebrate the project’s ground breaking ceremony. The 50,000-square-foot addition is projected to be completed in early 2023.

The project is an expansion of Dodson Commercial Real Estate’s Urban Union district, which opened in 2016.  The now popular Urban Union resuscitated a largely forgotten swath of Downtown Arlington, which had long been stuck in a time warp.

Urban Union brought life back to the area with a slew of notable restaurants, including  Sugar Bee Sweets Bakery, Legal Draft Beer Co., Cane Rosso, Texas Monthly’s newly Top 50 BBQ Joint anointed Hurtado Barbecue and 4 Kahunas Tiki Lounge.

This expansion means five new multi-story buildings that will push Urban Union to the west, creating a district with five walkable city blocks The expansion is designed to ease transit flow along Front Street as well by adding new head-in parking and extra wide pedestrian sidewalks.

This next phase of Urban Union will add something else never seen before in this district ― housing.  Get ready for 24 loft apartment units. These second and third floor apartments will be perched above the ground level retail spaces. They will be one-bedroom lofts, adding to the walkable neighborhood setup.

Sutton Frost Cary LLP — an accounting firm with 30 years of history in Arlington — is relocating its headquarters to the new development. Sutton Frost Cary’s new headquarters will occupy a two-story office building that is being built at the southeast corner of Front and Mesquite Streets. The accounting firm is taking the entire 11,000-square-foot second floor of that building.

Ryan Dodson promises that this will be a project “by locals and for locals”

Vegan powerhouse Spiral Diner, Burleson’s Doughboy Donuts, Cow Tipping Creamery ― the soft serve sundaes experts with three ice cream shops already in Frisco, Fort Worth and Dallas — and Coop’s Fowl Ball, a sports bar with a family friendly menu, are set to be some of the new additions.

“Downtown Arlington is truly becoming a live, work, play district,” Dodson says. “We’re happy to play a role in its renaissance.”

With Arlington’s revitalized downtown and the expansion of Urban Union, situated within walking distance of many of Arlington’s top attractions, (Globe Life Field and AT&T Stadium are both less than a mile away), Dodson feels even more future expansion is surely in the cards.