Back when we first started working on our citywalk @ akard project to provide permanent supportive housing to the homeless and when the whole idea of the new homeless assistance center was battling for a spot in the Downtown development plan, lots of people mounted a campaign based on the claim that Downtown Dallas would be ruined by such projects.
Fear is seldom a good measure of reality.
I love what I read in The Dallas Morning News back on May 7, 2008, months after we began citywalk@ akard, and almost a year after the City of Dallas started work on The Bridge, our new homeless assistance center, which openned yesterday.
Here it is for your encouragement. One thing is certain: Downtown Dallas is not "going to the dogs" because of our work or that of the Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance, the developers of The Bridge!
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Developers plan apartment projects near Dallas Farmers Market
11:06 PM CDT on Wednesday, May 7, 2008
By STEVE BROWN / The Dallas Morning News stevebrown@dallasnews.com
Developers are sizing up two key tracts near the Dallas Farmers Market, planning to construct hundreds of apartments.
California-based Legacy Partners has contracted to purchase about seven acres at Central Expressway and Interstate 30.
"We are going to build 460 apartment units," said Spencer Stuart, who heads Legacy Partners' Dallas regional office. "We think that is a real up-and-coming area."
It would be the largest development in that area since Houston-based Camden Property Trust built its Farmers Market rental community in 1999. The project was expanded in 2004.
Apartment builder Trammell Crow Residential is negotiating to purchase a four-acre tract on Pearl Street for more apartments.
Crow Residential officials said it was too early to talk about plans for the vacant property, which is just north of the Farmers Market sheds.
The city of Dallas is investing in the future of the historic produce market, having committed about $10 million toward improvements in the complex, which dates to the 1940s.
The addition of hundreds more residents to the area should add to customer traffic at the market, which has been lagging in recent years.
Property in the area has been selling for between $30 and $40 per square foot.
"We looked at land one mile away at more than $100," Mr. Stuart said.
Legacy Partners – which is finishing up a large apartment community in Richardson's Telecom Corridor – is planning an urban-style rental complex on the Farmers Market site that will be aimed at younger renters.
"This is going to be ... a lot different than anything down there," Mr. Stuart said.
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Just for the record, these new development plans target an area just a few short blocks from The Bridge!
I love it!
What do ya know?
Maybe we can all live together after all!
Could Dallas finally become a real city?
.
3 comments:
Larry,
You are so right! Downtown still stands, to the surprise of the naysayers. This is the "can do city," right? We 'CAN DO' this as well!
I can't wait for CityWalk to open; that is the next big step in addressing this issue of homelessness in our town.
I am very tired of the sprawled out life we are forced to live in the suburbs. Downtown living seems so attractive with it's diversity and a mixture of residential and retail so the environmentally-conscious person who is trying to break their addiction to oil can live, work and buy without ever burning a gallon of gas. Too bad living in Downtown Dallas is still so expensive. Hopefully the CityWalk project will open downtown to other residents.
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