Council Kicks Soccer Scheme From Under IH-345

Back in June, Dallas City Council was poised to vote on relinquishing their rights to lands under IH-345 and Canton Avenue to allow TXDoT to sign an agreement with State Senator Royce West’s son Roddrick to create five soccer fields under the highway.

You may recall that District 8 representative Tennell Atkins held-up a vote on Carpenter Park by not allowing the park and soccer field cases to be separated – trying to force the soccer fields through. (Feeling lost on IH-345, re-read our coverage here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).

The vote was held over until last Wednesday.

Keep ’em Separated

Immediately after the resolution on the three original cases was read, District 11 representative Lee Kleinman shot in with a motion to separate the cases that TXDoT had pushed together (three highway adjacent issues). After a pregnant pause, it passed quickly.

Carpenter Park was tackled first and quickly outside of an admitted grammar policewoman wanting to ensure the final resolution read correctly – it don’t do no good if it ain’t right. Those park goers will welcome the new restrooms scheduled for that part of the park – bringing the citywide total to 149.

Kicking it to The Curb

Next up was the parcel for the proposed soccer fields that’s been kicked around since 2018. Again, after a little grammar-fyin’, the resolution to kill it passed unanimously without a word from Tennell Atkins. The outcome wasn’t unexpected as observers of the June council meeting could tell how annoyed many were at holding up Carpenter Park for the off-smelling soccer plans.

Before the item, there were several speakers for and against the soccer fields. Roddrick West spoke about bringing over 120 jobs to the area between the five soccer fields. He also mentioned the city being on the receiving end of $500,000 in sales taxes. Reversed out, that’s roughly $6 million in revenues ($500,000 a month) from the soccer fields – that’s a lot of Sno-Caps and Nerf fingers. The city was always reticent on this project because of the other uses that could occur – like events and other boozier, revenue-generators. The other two supporters(?) simply babbled for so long they ran out of time before I knew what their point was.

Deep Ellum Parking is Already Sparse

Outside a wistful non-sequitur about soccer and the Vatican, the opposition was much more on-point. They called out the property for only providing 61 parking spaces to support five fields potentially containing five simultaneous games, their 10 teams, and associated fans (who would park where?). This isn’t even including parking for those 120-plus jobs the fields would create.

Deep Ellum is already a parking CF during COVID-19-free times, what would all the additional people bring? And as representatives from Deep Ellum Foundation and business owners pointed out in June, and again on Wednesday, they’ve been asking to lease the land to increase parking for over a decade – falling on TXDoT’s deaf ears.

The third parcel of the trio of separated cases is further down the road, just west of IH-345 between South Blvd and Pennsylvania Ave. There’s already a lot of planned work nearby, so the vote was to table discussion indefinitely pending that work.

In the end, the two-year saga of a suspect five-plex of soccer fields under a highway ended with the Dallas City Council doing the right thing. I’d like to say it’s the exception that proves the rule, but I’m already too cynical.