Local developer, Bay Area company team up to bring innovation center to The Cedars

March 3, 2021
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Global Silicon Valley (GSV), a growth investment platform based in the Bay Area, is teaming up with Dallas developer Hoque Global to bring a new innovation center to SoGood, an ambitious mixed-use project in The Cedars.

The innovation center, called GSV Labs at SoGood, will serve as an incubator for local startups and entrepreneurs, providing them with critical business tools and resources needed for their ideas and businesses to grow. GSV, which describes itself as a modern merchant bank on LinkedIn, works to "identify, advise, investing in, and accelerate the fastest growing, most dynamic companies in the world."

“We are excited to put a GSV Labs at the heart of the SoGood development,” said Michael Moe, co-founder of GSV Ventures, in a prepared statement. “We look to be a magnet of talent not only in the Dallas marketplace, but really in the regional marketplace and frankly from a global perspective.”

Dallas entrepreneur Trey Bowles has also partnered with Hoque Global to make SoGood a world class innovation district. As co-chair of the Mayor’s Task Force on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Bowles is focused on ensuring investments in this space benefit southern Dallas, which has lacked many of the opportunities found elsewhere in the area.

“We have all sorts of innovation programs happening all across the region, but what's interesting about SoGood is the intentionality of the stakeholders involved,” Bowles said in a prepared statement. “What the team recognizes is what the real components are that occur and make innovation, and how you create the right environment for those organic collisions to happen.”

GSV Labs at SoGood was first announced during Downtown Dallas Inc.’s Annual Meeting on Tuesday afternoon. Based on new renderings of SoGood, the innovation center will be located in its own office building. Actual specs of the multi-story building were not given.

Last month, plans were announced for the first phase of SoGood, which would include a 266-unit apartment complex called The Chloe. Hoque Global has teamed up with Corsair Ventures to build the apartments, which are expected to break ground later this year. DOMUS Studio has designed the apartments while TBG will act as the landscape architect. Interior design is being handled by Ink+Oro.

Additional phases of the development will include retail and restaurant space, green space and more apartments. New renderings also suggest a brewery may be in SoGood's future. The innovation center is expected to break ground after The Chloe in early 2022, along with some of the above mentioned features.

The 15-acre SoGood development will be located on the site of a former Pilgrim's Pride chicken plant on Cesar Chavez Boulevard in The Cedars, a neighborhood just south of downtown Dallas. Merriman-Anderson Architects has designed the project.

“Multi-faceted, impactful placemaking in southern downtown is happening with SoGood – a gateway development that will have all the components to establish true momentum and additional investment in the area,” said Mike Hoque, CEO and founder of Hoque Global, in a prepared statement. “Our thoughtful work with our innovation center follows our strategic direction and will be exemplary, as we foster and nurture opportunity with all of the elements to build business and economic impact that benefits all.”