Surveying The Historic Buildings of Downtown Dallas and Deep Ellum Can Save Our City’s Character
Share News:
By David Preziosi
Executive Director, Preservation Dallas
In order to preserve buildings and places that are important to the history of Dallas for the future, it is extremely important to identify those buildings that qualify as historic, find where they are located, and learn more about their importance to the development and history of Dallas. That is accomplished through a Historic Resources Survey, which documents and maps the historic buildings.
Over the years, many such surveys have been done in different parts of Dallas. For nearly two years, a survey of downtown Dallas and Deep Ellum has been underway to update previous surveys of those areas and identify what buildings are now historic. A building must be at least 50 years old to qualify as historic. Yes, 1970s buildings are now becoming historic and maintain a certain degree of integrity, meaning they retain a majority of their original design features.
Surveying Our Built History
A current Historic Resources Survey helps us know which buildings are eligible to access local, state, and federal incentives for rehabilitation. To qualify, buildings must be historic and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Dallas leads the state in the use of historic preservation incentives with over $1.5 billion invested in historic rehabilitation projects across the city since 2000. Those projects included the revitalization of numerous vacant or underutilized buildings such as The Statler, Old Dallas High School, Knights of Pythias (now The Pittman), Lone Star Gas Lofts, Dallas Power and Light Building, the First National Bank (now The National and the largest preservation tax credit project to date in Texas), and many more.
Those buildings are now on the tax rolls at tremendously higher assessed values and are providing new jobs and additional tax revenue for the city. That would not have been possible if they were not identified as historic at some point and deemed worthy of preservation and listing on the National Register of Historic Places to access the incentives.
Turning a Tragic Loss Into Action
Interestingly, the current survey underway was spurred on by unfortunate and surprise demolitions of several historic buildings in downtown Dallas in 2014 during a Sunday Cowboy’s game. The shock of the wrecking ball tearing through century-old buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places angered many as there was no notice posted of the demolition or public discussion of alternatives to the demolition.
In response to the wanton destruction of a slice of downtown Dallas’ historic fabric, the city created a Downtown Dallas Historic Preservation Task Force to study ways to better protect historic buildings in Dallas. They met for several months and came up with nine recommendations. One of the most important was establishing a demolition delay process for historic buildings in the city, which was adopted in 2015 for downtown Dallas and a portion of Oak Cliff. It was expanded in 2018 to encompass portions of Old East Dallas and more of Oak Cliff.
Ensuring Tragedy Doesn’t Strike Again
Another very important recommendation was to, “conduct a new, state-of‐the‐art survey of Greater Downtown as a base layer for direction, to establish preservation priorities, and to provide a tool for existing and future planning.”
In that recommendation, it noted:
“An updated survey is needed, one which takes a broad view of our city’s urban context beyond buildings, to identify remnants of disappearing urban fabric, thematic structures that define an area’s character, and prominent built features of the city. The use of new technology provides opportunities to capture the larger street fabric so that the benefits of preservation can reach a larger segment of the community, contribute to public health and welfare, and allow the city to act in a proactive rather than reactive way.”
The last survey of downtown Dallas was completed in 2003 and is now terribly out of date following the 50-year rule for buildings to be considered historic. Many more buildings in downtown Dallas are considered historic when they weren’t in 2003, especially the many wonderful Midcentury-era buildings constructed in the 1950s and 1960s.
Nearly five years after the city adopted the Task Force recommendations, the City Council approved $100,000 in June 2020 for a Historic Resources Survey of Downtown Dallas. Preservation Dallas assisted with the effort by raising $95,000 for the project from Downtown Dallas, Inc., the Summerlee Foundation, the Hoblitzelle Foundation, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation to match the city’s money. The Austin-based consulting firm of HHM & Associates was hired to complete the survey after a lengthy RFP process. HHM is no stranger to Dallas as they have completed many surveys over the years for different areas of the city and across Texas.
Fieldwork began on the survey in the fall of 2020. The consultants walked every street downtown taking photos of the buildings, noting their condition and historic integrity, and identifying other items such as streets, parks, plazas, and public art. That information was downloaded into a database. While finalizing the number of resources to survey in the field, the consultants discovered fewer buildings to survey than initially thought. Due to that, they were able to expand the survey to Deep Ellum, which was not part of the original scope of work. That was very exciting news to the City of Dallas, Preservation Dallas, and the Deep Ellum Foundation as there are so many important historic buildings in Deep Ellum that need to be surveyed and updated from previous surveys.
Fieldwork in Deep Ellum was finished in early 2021.
As part of the project, HHM also researched and wrote a series of 22 citywide thematic historic context statements to guide future evaluation efforts and designate historic resources. These themes range from Railroads, Urban Planning and Renewal, Banking, and Finance to the Civil Rights Movement. The context statements provide information specific to each topic and how they relate to historic resources and the development and history of Dallas. They also include supplementary figures, tables, and maps to support the discussion on each topic.
Be a Part of Saving Dallas History
Both the Historic Resources Survey and the Context Statement drafts have been completed by the consultants and are available for the public to review and make comments. On Feb. 15, Preservation Dallas and the Office of Historic Preservation will host a virtual meeting at 6 p.m. for the public to give comments or ask questions regarding the drafts of the Historic Survey Report and the Historic Context Statements for Dallas.
The survey and statements are available for review by clicking on the links:
Vol I – Dallas Downtown and Deep Ellum Survey Report
Vol II – Dallas Historic Context StatementsComments may also be provided electronically using a Google Survey form for comments that can be accessed below:
Survey Report and Context Statements Comment Form
All comments must be submitted by midnight on Feb. 15 to be included in the final draft of the reports.
To access the Zoom meeting, use this link:
Meeting ID: 876 1700 9517
Passcode: 824502You may also dial in via phone at 1-346-248-7799 and use the meeting ID and passcode above.
We at Preservation Dallas are very excited to have this critical Historic Resources Survey of Downtown Dallas and Deep Ellum almost complete. After the comments are collected, they will be incorporated into the final draft of the survey and statements, which will go to the Landmark Commission and City Plan Commission in May, followed by the City Council in June. As part of the project, the City of Dallas will make the final results and information on the buildings in the survey accessible to the public through their GIS database at the city so that anyone can access and search through the information.
This project will be an extraordinary tool for Dallas and those working to preserve its historic places. It will help recognize those places as a vital part of Dallas, contributing to a vibrant and diverse city. It is an incredible resource that we can use to understand better where those places are located, provide a base‐layer for direction for preservation goals, help establish preservation priorities, and become a tool for existing and future planning initiatives that can help save the historic places that make Dallas unique.
