Sams Will be Probably Most Likely Go Up Across from CityPlace While Court Battle Rages

On Friday, Dallas City Attorney Warren Ernst filed an appeal to Judge Phyllis Lister Brown’s October 14 ruling in favor of the East Village Association to stop that big box Sam’s Club that Trammell Crow Company is building acros from Cityplace, the one that has so many neighbors up in arms.

It has the City of Dallas queasy, too: City’s been trying to get the case tossed, and city attorneys have also filed several motions to dismiss the case for, among other things, lack of jurisdiction. I suppose the city is worried about the liability of having approved a pricey project (don’t get me started) and then backtracking on it.

Judge Brown’s ruling gave new hope to the East Village Association, whose attorney, Anthony Ricciardelli, was hoping for a trial as early as next year. But now, that trial won’t take place for a long, long time: while under appeal, the case sort of gets set aside while the appeals are heard… and more appeals are made… and heard. Everything in the current case just gets as frozen as the turkeys in Sam’s deep freezers.

But the building process is not frozen: Trammel Crow Company is busy doing asbestos remediation and getting ready to demo the Xerox building, then hand  over the site to Walmart to start building. So yes, while the appeals work their way through the system, the building could actually be built, and even open for a 24 hour Thanksgiving day sale.