Local developer Ray Washburne has purchased the Greyhound bus station in Downtown Dallas.
The real estate mogul and businessman currently owns multiple other properties in the area. Last year, The Dallas Express reported that Charter Holdings, of which Washburne is the president and CEO, purchased the historic seven-story Founders Square Building in Downtown Dallas. In 2019, Charter Holdings bought the former Dallas Morning News campus located on Young Street for $28 million.
While the latest deal has been kept confidential, the Dallas Central Appraisal District values the 26,000-square-foot property at $2.8 million.
Earlier this year, a spokesperson for Greyhound said the Downtown terminal was slated to close in October to coincide with its lease expiration, though intercity bus service would be maintained. Since that time, however, the lease has been extended until April 2025. After that point, Washburne says he plans to redevelop the property.
Washburne told The Dallas Morning News that he has no concrete plans for the site yet.
“I’m just trying to help clean up downtown … and the idea is to get it ready for the new convention center,” he said. “They’re going to be there until April, and then we’ll get in there and decide how to redevelop and reposition it.”
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, some people have raised concerns over the planned shuttering of the Downtown bus station. Joseph Schwieterman, director of the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development at DePaul University, warned of the importance of maintaining the bus connection in Dallas because of the volume of passengers and the city’s central location.
“I will say Dallas has an outsized importance as a connecting hub due to its favorable geography… You’ve got traffic coming up from Mexico, lots of traffic from McAllen and Laredo, lots of migrants. East-west traffic tends to get funneled through Dallas,” he said at the time, per DMN.