Grapevine nixes revised plan for apartments near Grapevine Mills
The City of Grapevine again denied a zoning change and conditional use permit for a mixed-use development near Grapevine Mills in a vote of 4 to 2 at a Tuesday, May 19 joint meeting with the city council and planning and zoning commission.
The planning and zoning commission deliberated the request and denied it in a vote of 4 to 3, which needed a supermajority to pass. After the planning commission told the council about its vote, Mayor Pro Tem Paul Slechta made a motion to approve the application, but in the final vote, Council members Leon Leal and Sharron Rogers voted against it.
The property is located at 2800 and 3421 Grapevine Mills Parkway and is currently zoned for hotel corporate office and community commercial use. The land is around 28 acres and would be subdivided into four separate lots for the rentals with 248 multi-family units across 11 buildings. There would also be another three portions for hotels, according to director of planning services Erica Marohnic.
One of the hotels would be a 75-foot tall, six-story Sandman Signature Hotel on 5.9 acres with 220 rooms, according to city documents. The 135,735-square-foot hotel would have a full-service Chop Steakhouse and Bar Restaurant, meeting space, a fitness center and an outdoor pool.
Commercial real estate developer Trammell Crow Company proposed the zoning change from hotel corporate office district to community commercial district for 20 acres on the eastern part of the property, as it plans to build three- to four-story apartment buildings that would have 248 units.
Rentals vs. single-family homes
Joel Behrens, managing director of Trammell Crow’s Dallas-Fort Worth office, said at the May 19 meeting that the company has worked to make the revisions to its plan over the course of the last 18 months.
In those 18 months, Behren said the company worked with city staff, met with elected officials and made a plan that “meets the vision and the needs of the city.”
The council had previously denied a similar zoning change and conditional use permit that included townhouses in July 2024.
Both Mayor William D. Tate and council member Duff O’Dell expressed they felt it was unfair to ask the company to make changes and still deny their request after they made the changes.
“I think it is a very ambitious and well-planned project,” O’Dell said. “I think it’s an excellent example of what true multi-use projects should be, and I appreciate that.”
The issue with the development is whether Grapevine should have more apartments — or, since the city is almost built out, that any future developments should be for single-family homes instead of rental properties.
“I’m probably not going to approve this, only because, to me, it’s an apartment, and I’m just not a big fan at this particular time of having more apartments in Grapevine,” Leal said at the meeting. “I think we’re kind of at a point where we don’t need more apartments, we need more single-family [housing].”
The mayor said he thought bringing more rentals to an area that already has apartments would help add more students to nearby Grapevine-Colleyville schools.
The Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District recently voted to close Dove and Bransford elementary schools due to a decline in enrollments, and will be consolidating schools in the upcoming school year.
This story was originally published May 22, 2026 at 11:35 AM.