Three Panels Are Reviewing Dallas’ City-Owned Real Estate, But There’s no Strategic Vision

City officials have again promised a “deep dive” into plans for repurposing 50,000 acres of city-owned real estate, but they don’t have a strategic vision, and three different panels are evaluating the assets. 

Those three panels — the Trust for Public Land, the Ad Hoc Committee on Pensions, and the Dallas Economic Development Corporation — may also have different agendas for how to use the city-owned real estate. 

The pension fund, for example, is facing a $3 billion deficit and its board members likely want to sell assets and put some cash in the pension fund. Although it’s not known exactly how much of the city-owned real estate is parkland, it’s “significant” and can’t be touched, officials have said. 

Council members on the Government Performance and Financial Management Committee, chaired by Chad West, have expressed interest in repurposing city buildings for housing. 

Housing doesn’t appear to be the top priority in the scope of work for the Dallas EDC. 

In response to a question in an Oct. 23 GPFM meeting about how the EDC would evaluate land for potential housing opportunities, board president John Stephens said, “We’re not there yet, and quite frankly, I don’t know that we will go there.”

City Brings in Economic Development Corporation to Make Recommendations on Dallas Real Estate Assets

Dallas Book of Real Estate 

The matter of city-owned real estate remains on the agenda for the monthly meeting of the GPFM and again came up during a Nov. 14 discussion. 

Assistant City Manager Robert Perez said department directors will soon be turning in an inventory of the city-owned parcels under their purview and a governance committee of executive leaders will be looking at land and office space for potential opportunities.

“We are aware that there are multiple groups looking at the city’s real estate,” he said. “We’ll definitely take input from each group that is evaluating the parcels as well as our office space. This time around our feedback from our directors will be a lot more scrutinized. Typically if land is being held, it will be noted that it’s being held for a future project. This time around we want to hear details like what’s the five-year plan, is it a funded project, what is the project, and things of that nature. Additionally, we’ll be looking at our leases to see if there are opportunities to consolidate our lease space into existing city facilities that may have some vacant space.” 

A strategic plan will probably take two to three years to create and execute, Perez added. 

West said he’d like to see a long-term vision with stakeholder input that can outlast the current administration. 

“I think there should be a plan in place, a procedure that’s codified,” he said. “I’m not going to tell you how to structure it. There needs to be something that lives on past you, past us, that is a vision. I think it should be developed in conjunction with the taxpayers and the private industry, not just internal city staff.”

Council members Paula Blackmon and Cara Mendelsohn suggested tackling the “low-hanging fruit” immediately rather than waiting two or three years.  

“Honestly I think we’re too in the weeds on this topic, but we’ve been brought to this topic because it really hasn’t been addressed,” Mendelsohn said. “We are sitting on way too many underperforming assets. We need to pay our pension. We need to develop housing and we need parks. I think you’ve heard from many of the council members those three priorities.”

Instead of looking at the entire portfolio at once, Mendelsohn said, maybe start with the Oak Cliff Municipal Center that’s being vacated as Development Services and other staff move to Stemmons Freeway. 

“There’s some low-hanging fruit that we could immediately sell or lease,” Mendelsohn said. I’m hoping that a plan doesn’t take two years, but maybe at a retreat that you have, you guys sit down with this more detailed spreadsheet and say, ‘OK, here’s 10 properties we know we can sell. Let’s go get appraisals. Let’s figure out how much we’re talking about then let’s have a serious pension conversation.’ If there are policies that are going to inhibit action, then we need to address that.” 

Repurposing City-Owned Property For Housing 

During the Nov. 14 GPFM meeting, West referenced a discussion that came up in a Housing and Homelessness Solutions Committee meeting earlier that day. 

“One of the concerns that came up was that there’s no goal, no number we’re working toward in our housing gap,” he said. “Child Poverty Action Lab told us what we need to build, how many [homes] we need. Our Housing Policy 2033 doesn’t have a vision in it for what we need to build. I feel like this strategic group should be taking the number we need and saying, ‘Here’s our available real estate; how much can we use to fill that gap?’ You don’t even have a number because that piece is gone and we don’t have the strategic plan in place for this.”

Councilman Jesse Moreno, who chairs the housing committee, said he was excited to see the discussion moving forward. 

“There’s some parcels we’ve already identified,” he said. “I don’t want to wait two years to proceed, especially when we have outside experts willing to help us.”

Perez explained that City Manager T.C. Broadnax has shared some insight about what was done with city-owned property when he was in Tacoma, Wash. 

“What I envision is incorporating some of the best practices that are utilized in other cities into that administrative directive,” he said. “We do know there are going to be some quick hits, if you will. We know that [OCMC is] going to be a good project for us to look at. We’re looking across the departments to identify other projects that could potentially be programmed in the [2024] bond. We’ve talked about redeveloping fire stations with housing and rec centers with housing, some multi-use projects. I think in the interim or the very near term, it’s looking at those projects that make it into the bond to actually have funds to leverage a public-private partnership. OCMC is definitely going to be one of those projects we’ll be looking at along with other priorities across various departments.”