Blake Poston used to patrol the secondary for SMU. Now the founder of Cover2 Capital is eyeing the Uptown Dallas skyline, with a roughly $100 million, 20-story high-rise planned at 5220 McKinney Avenue. The project is pitched as a boutique, large-format rental building with about 100 apartments, three penthouses, and notably generous floor plans that are meant to read more like luxury condos than typical rentals. The plan is still in early design and city review as Poston’s firm lines up entitlements and financing.
As reported by The Real Deal, Cover2 is under contract to buy two parcels for the site and is targeting a construction start late next year. The Real Deal notes the development is being called The Savannah and pegs the total cost at around $100 million. A public listing on LoopNet identifies 5220 McKinney Ave in the Knox/Knox-Henderson area as the address.
Developer’s pitch and where it would sit
According to Cover2 Capital, the McKinney Ave Residences are planned as a 20-story boutique tower immediately next to Highland Park and the Katy Trail, with below-grade parking and a rooftop amenity deck. The project page lists the status as predevelopment and design while the team refines what will actually rise on the site. That mix of trail access, walkability, and a tight supply of new product in the immediate area is central to how Cover2 is selling the location.
Big units, boutique positioning
The Real Deal reports the building would average about 1,800 square feet per unit, with a range of one to three bedrooms plus three penthouses, a setup intentionally larger than much of the existing Uptown rental stock. The outlet also notes that Cover2 has tapped ZDS as architect of record for the tower. All of that points to a high-end, low-density rental play rather than the more common small-unit multifamily formula.
Cover2’s track record
Cover2 is not a complete newcomer to ground-up work in North Texas. The firm is behind Wheelhouse, an approximately 297-unit mixed-use project that includes retail and park space, as reported by The Dallas Morning News. The company’s site also lists Greerhouse, a planned garden-style multifamily property in Anna, giving Poston a modest but active pipeline as he turns to this Uptown effort. Those earlier projects are the kind Cover2 cites when courting investors for a bigger, riskier downtown tower.
Where this fits in Uptown’s pipeline
The proposal arrives in the middle of a busy run of new construction in Uptown, where both office and residential towers are either on the drawing board or already underway. Industry coverage has highlighted other big swings along McKinney Avenue and nearby corridors, from revived office-tower plans to speculative projects that are slowly rewriting the skyline. That broader wave of activity, tracked by the Dallas Business Journal, suggests the McKinney corridor remains a magnet for speculative and for-lease development.
Timeline and what to watch next
The tower is still firmly in predevelopment. Cover2 points to continued design work and the usual city-review gauntlet as the next steps, with permits and entitlements likely to be the clearest public sign that shovels are getting close. City records and meeting agendas already list 5220 McKinney Ave in public filings, and observers can watch for building-permit applications and any associated public hearings on the site, as reflected in City of Dallas documents. If approvals and financing fall into place, the project would join a broader wave of high-end additions to Uptown over the coming years.
