The former Dawson State Jail on the banks of the Trinity River has a new owner: the Trinity Park Conservancy, the nonprofit tasked with building a park in the floodway.

What will become of the building on West Commerce Street remained unclear after the sale. Brent Brown, the conservancy's CEO and president, said Wednesday evening that many options are on the table, including mixed-income housing and office space.

But for now, Brown said the conservancy would likely move its offices into the former jail. And in the future, he imagines ground-floor amenities for park and trail users ranging from a bike-repair shop to a cafe or refreshment stand.

"We've been working very diligently to understand the community development needs around the park," Brown said. "When the building came back on the market, we thought it was important to see how it could be turned into service for the community, and we were fortunate to be able to do that."

Brown said the conservancy paid the state "around $3 million" for the jail — the same price Statler Hotel developer Mehrdad Moayedi said he offered for the building in February 2018, when he flirted with converting the vacant 10-story, 238,000-square-foot structure into a campus for the homeless. Moayedi dropped those plans nine months later, when he said he "couldn't get a fire lane around the building," a requirement to house people there.

Dallas Central Appraisal District records show that an entity called MSW 106 Commerce LLC last month bought the former state jail, which was built in 1995 and shuttered in the summer of 2013. The company was registered with the state on March 12 and shares a Lewisville address with Matthews Southwest, the real estate development company owned by Cedars and downtown developer Jack Matthews, who serves as the conservancy's treasurer and finance chair.

Brown said Matthews "advised" on the purchase but didn't provide the funds for it. Jeamy Molina, the conservancy's director of communications and engagement, said that when the deal closed last month, "membership interest in MSW 106 Commerce was assigned to the conservancy."

Brown said the money to buy the former jail came from "unrestricted funds" gifted by donors. And he said the conservancy didn't use money intended to help build a 200-acre park between the Ron Kirk Pedestrian Bridge and the Margaret McDermott Bridge at Interstate 30.

The Trinity Park Conservancy's 2018 tax return shows that it has almost $11 million in its fund balance.

Brent Brown (right) is president and CEO of the Trinity Park Conservancy, which announced Wednesday that it has bought the old state jail on the banks of the Trinity River. (File Photo / Staff)

The park, currently under design and the subject of ongoing conversation between the conservancy, City Hall and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is expected to cost around $200 million. A quarter of that comes from Annette Simmons, widow of the late billionaire Harold Simmons, for whom the planned park in the floodway is supposed to be named if or when it's constructed.

The local government corporation set up to develop, build and maintain said park also had nothing to do with the building's purchase, Brown said.

The conservancy bought the building to serve as "the catalyst for equitable development" around the proposed park, and to "create economic stimulus for the surrounding area," Brown said. He also said the conservancy believes that whatever development occurs in the old jail will also generate enough revenue to fund the park project.

Brown said the conservancy should work now to drive any development that occurs between the bridges and levees rather than play catch-up later.

"Usually when other projects like this have been done, people wait until later on to do some of these things," he said. But when the opportunity to buy the jail came up, "we jumped at it," he said.

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said he was "excited to learn" the conservancy completed the purchase.

"I'm especially pleased that the conservancy's vision for this property is to benefit the community and may include mixed-income housing," he said.

City leaders have long coveted the property. In 2010, city documents called the slice of land "the single most important link between the Dallas Central Business District Convention Center and the Trinity River Corridor." Officials even commissioned a cost study to determine the price tag of a "comparable property" in City Hall's portfolio to offer up in a swap with the state.

When informed in 2013 that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice planned to shutter the beleaguered facility — the subject of federal litigation after several deaths — then-City Manager Mary Suhm was thrilled.

"It's a nice opportunity," she told The Dallas Morning News. "You're bringing me some very good news."

1 / 3The Jesse R. Dawson State Jail, now the property of the Trinity Park Conservancy (File Photo / Staff) 2 / 3Correctional officer Max Faurot stands near dining tables inside a woman's hall during a tour of the Jesse R. Dawson State Jail on March 06, 2017. (File) 3 / 3A view of downtown Dallas seen from the Jesse R. Dawson State Jail(Ben Torres / Special Contributor)

Three years later, when the Dawson jail was finally ready to hit the market, city staffers talked about serving as a "conduit" between the state, which owned the building, and developers interested in buying it if the city couldn't afford the asking price. At the time, City Hall was keen to have someone convert the jail into a mid-rise residential property.

But developers seemed largely disinterested in that idea because the former state jail is across the street from the Dallas County jail. And the surrounding parking lot is controlled by a separate property owner, who also had hoped to buy the old state jail.

A couple of years ago, downtown City Council member Philip Kingston tried to persuade new City Manager T.C. Broadnax that the building could serve as a temporary or permanent homeless shelter. But city and county officials determined that converting the jail would be too costly, and state Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, was dead-set against the idea anyway. Last October, the city's Office of Homeless Solutions emphatically scratched the building off its list of possible sites.

Brown said he still believes adaptive reuse of the jail is possible with the right ideas and the right partners.

"We think it can be a great asset," he said. "Now we'll think about and look at all the options — for the building and the overall area."