The more than $30 million pending sale of The Dallas Morning News' historic building puts a spotlight on an area of downtown that's been overlooked in recent years.

In the early 20th century, the southwest corner of downtown Dallas was one of the busiest sectors of the city. Thousands of people a year poured through the area in what was then the equivalent of DFW International Airport - the Union Station railway depot.

That's one of the reasons The News picked the site on Young Street for its new building in the 1940s. The location was a Big D hot spot. But with the decline in rail traffic and increasing growth on the north side of downtown, by the 1970s the area was in decline.

Construction of the Reunion development brought new attention to the neighborhood in the late 1970s and created an instant landmark — the 50-story Reunion Tower.

Still, downtown growth kept barreling north with 1980s skyscrapers popping up along Ross Avenue, construction of the Arts District and the explosion of Uptown.

The sale of The News campus to North Texas' busiest commercial builder, KDC, signals new activity for the southwest corner of downtown.

The more than 7-acre former newspaper complex at Young and Houston streets is one of the largest potential building sites downtown.

And KDC, which has constructed massive corporate campuses for companies including Toyota, State Farm Insurance, JPMorgan Chase and Liberty Mutual Insurance, isn't the kind of developer that just buys up properties with no building plans.

Look for the developer and its partner Hoque Global to be a rainmaker and new business to that area of downtown.

The News property and the vacant Reunion Arena site next door were one of the Dallas locations offered to Amazon for its second U.S. headquarters will millions of square feet of planned offices.

The old Morning News campus isn't the only property in transition.

A new 12-story, 167-room Courtyard by Marriott hotel just opened across Ferris Plaza from The News at Wood and Houston streets.

And redevelopment of the former Belo Building — now 400 Record — has brought hundreds of new office workers to the area.