Urban Land Institute Sessions Show How Development Can Cause Careless Displacement

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Dallas Arts District: Empty by Day

Dallas Arts District: Empty by Day

There’s always a second side to a coin.  While some of the sessions at the Urban Land Institute (ULI) meeting were inspiring, others demonstrated developers’ tone-deafness to the world around them. While proud of their achievements, few reflected on the effects of their developments.

“The Uptown Lowdown: Dallas’ Hottest Urban Market”

I suspect even the dead know how hot Uptown Dallas has become. It’s so hot, the area can even shell out for world-class architects, something Dallas skyline hasn’t seen in decades. In the 1980s every other architectural word seemed to be I.M. Pei or Philip Johnson.  In the decades since, our skyline has been shaped seemingly by graduates of box-building school.

Crescent Court Lot an "Arrow" to the Future of Uptown

Crescent Court Lot an “Arrow” to the Future of Uptown

Crescent Development points out that the newly opened McKinney and Olive building, designed by Cesar Pelli, is “the first internationally acclaimed architect to design a commercial building in Dallas since the 1980s.”  Not coincidentally, in 1986 Philip Johnson and John Burgee designed the Crescent Court, which kick-started the commercial transformation of Uptown.  Sitting on a triangular lot, the Crescent seems to be pointing the way out of downtown.

And don’t get me wrong, Uptown has been a great story of urban renewal that has extended the core of Dallas northward.  But at the same time, listening to the stories of its birth were squirmy.  Attracting initial residents was difficult, as is often the case when downtrodden areas are renewed (we fear the poor). But the indifference and mocking of the area’s original residents was discomforting.

And again, I’m fine with mocking Uptown as having been full of used car lots, antique stores, and tarot card readers … they’re businesses.  But listening to the derision towards the residents who’d called Uptown home was distasteful.  We heard about developers cutting deals with “crack heads” on the corner and “showing apartments while stepping over chalk outlines on the sidewalks.” All of this seemed to be code for the people of color who lived in Uptown before the area was whitewashed by development.

Before you get in a snit, talk of crack heads and chalk outlines does not bring to mind white neighborhoods.  It also doesn’t bring to mind middle or upper class neighborhoods. I didn’t live in Dallas at the time, but I knew what the speakers meant.  Poor, black people.

Where those people went was not part of the narrative, but it was a topic this summer during CandysDirt.com’s panel discussion on Fair Park.  The sentiment being not to repeat the displacement that occurred unchallenged in State Thomas.

However, the current Uptown is not without new risks.  When asked how the area’s young demographic afforded all these new expensive apartments, we were told we’d be surprised how many 20-something leases were guaranteed by parents. A hiccup in the economy could have a serious impact on vacancy rates.

There’s also work to be done to transition the area from single, childless, nightclubbers to a more sustainable, family oriented neighborhood.  If they can’t, Uptown becomes a place to spend your wayward youth before knuckling down in the burbs.

“Artfully Building Cities: Can Cultural Attractions Drive Private Development? The Dallas and Fort Worth Stories”

Given citywide focus on Fair Park, this session looked interesting.  Could cultural attractions at Fair Park kick-start its renewal?  The answer is “yes” but it’s an uncomfortable “yes.”

In the opening sentences by former Dallas City Council member and former executive director of the Dallas Arts District Veletta Lill, I learned that it was the creation of the Arts District that put a nail in Fair Park’s coffin.

It began in the mid-1970s with the relocation of what is today the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) from Fair Park.  The exodus continued as other institutions abandoned the public park for greener, privately-owned pastures fronting Woodall Rodgers.  Obviously, the abandonment by these “cultural attractions” had the exact opposite economic effect on Fair Park as it had in the new Arts District.

Again, a session where no one involved looked back with any understanding of the cycle that was created.  Lucy Crow Billingsley, developer of One Arts Plaza, lamented that the city was currently too focused on Fair Park.  Had the city itself and its cultural institutions not abandoned Fair Park, but instead invested the same amount of money used to create the Arts District, today’s Fair Park discussion would be vastly different.

Fair Park is a complex issue with a lot of the blame resting on city government, but gutting the reasons for Dallas’ citizens to visit the park was a very big blow.  With empty buildings, no one was there to stump for their restoration … except the surviving institution that continues to hamper Fair Park’s future success, the State Fair.

Vacant Arts District Overseen by One Arts Plaza's "Donor Housing"

In a twist of fate, the Arts District isn’t all that was envisioned.  Our arts temples on Woodall Rodgers are a place few visit without a ticket in their hands. Otherwise, it’s kinda dead.

The plan of a mixed use district has largely gone unrealized. Anchoring each end of the area are two residential projects that might be best described as donor housing.  With condos ranging from $750,000 to multi-millions, they are probably a who’s who of arts donors.  Between Museum Tower and One Arts Plaza, these 175 condos can’t alone bring vibrancy to the area.  The addition of trendy food trucks to bring in lunchtime office workers doesn’t feel like a long-term solution.

The Arts District made the cardinal mistake of creating an area of little used, pretty warehouses. Other cities have organically scattered their arts facilities throughout their cities to better absorb venue traffic patterns.  Even heavily concentrated areas like New York’s Broadway and London’s West End scatter their theaters within vibrant neighborhoods.

Fort Worth

In sister city Fort Worth, the arts landed on a triangular parcel bounded by Camp Bowie Blvd., University Drive, and West Lancaster across from the Will Rogers Memorial Center. The opposing triangular parcel to the north contains the UNT Health Science Center along with a bunch of commercial to residential development.

Ft. Worth Arts District triangle with gentrified areas

Fort Worth Arts District triangle with gentrified areas

I have no problem converting commercial properties to residential within a reinvigorated urban area (e.g. Dallas’ Design District).  But what was equally telling and equally unmentioned was what happened north of West 7th St.

What was a heavily treed area of middle-class homes built between the 1920s and 1940s continues its heavy gentrification. Original 1,500-square-foot, two-bedroom, two-bathroom bungalows are being replaced with 2,500-square-foot townhomes or 4,500-square-foot, zero-lot-line mansions.  I know this because the speaker showed aerial pictures tracking the museum infill that also showed the slow deforestation as original single-family homes (and their trees) were torn down. There are any number of Dallas neighborhood corollaries.

Both Dallas and Fort Worth examples answered this session’s titular question.  Yes, cultural attractions will bring investment, but that investment will invariably displace the area’s residents … without a second thought.

Miscellaneous Observations

In every session I attended where gentrification or homelessness was brought up, it was always a problem that needed to go away … not be fixed … removed.  One out-of-town questioner at the Klyde Warren session asked if the park had a homeless problem.  The answer was “no” because the park was active (the homeless don’t like activity he said), had security and wasn’t open 24/7 … and that he knew precisely which city parks the homeless frequented.  Another panelist, sensing the carelessness of the answer quickly said that all were welcome at the park.

In ULI’s defense, there was a session titled “Dallas’ Affordable and Mixed-Income Housing Plan” that I was unable to attend (day job and all) and CandysDirt.com writer Amanda Popken attended other “gentler” sessions.

Finally, the closing day locknote featured former President George W. Bush as an … inspirational? … speaker. The day before, as media we received a note stating, “President Bush’s staff has informed us that no media will be allowed to cover his presentation…”  Even at something as banal and non-political as the Urban Land Institute, the former President couldn’t take the chance he wouldn’t embarrass himself?  I’d already figured he’d be uninformative (as most inspirational speakers are), but this just added icing on the “why would I go to that” cake. Now if it were Jimmy Carter, our generation’s greatest post-President, who’d have a lot of wisdom to impart on housing and homelessness, I’d have been there with bells on.

Remember:  High-rises, HOAs and renovation are my beat. But I also appreciate modern and historical architecture balanced against the YIMBY movement.  If you’re interested in hosting a Candysdirt.com Staff Meeting event, I’m your guy. In 2016, my writing was recognized with Bronze and Silver awards from the National Association of Real Estate Editors.  Have a story to tell or a marriage proposal to make?  Shoot me an email [email protected].

Jon Anderson is CandysDirt.com's condo/HOA and developer columnist, but also covers second home trends on SecondShelters.com. An award-winning columnist, Jon has earned silver and bronze awards for his columns from the National Association of Real Estate Editors in both 2016, 2017 and 2018. When he isn't in Hawaii, Jon enjoys life in the sky in Dallas.

1 Comment

  1. renato on November 4, 2016 at 1:09 pm

    I like the “tone” of your Uptown comments. I admire developers as developers but, when they start talking, it’s like movie stars testifying before Congress. In general, they really don’t play well with others.

    But contrast the tone-deafness of the Uptown developers with the twisted psychology of the downzoners in Oak Lawn.

    The fifteen or so old construction HOA properties that they want to downzone are not crackhouses or crime scenes, but they do all need to be cleared in the next 15 or so years, and a little more Uptown attitude is going to be needed to accomplish it. In fact, it is largely the build-out of Uptown that has provided the market prices that should allow Oak Lawn to smoothly transition out of the old construction to a better future while avoiding significant further deterioration of these dated properties.

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