Dallas Zeroes in on 10 City-Owned Properties to Redevelop, And Some Could Become Housing
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An old court building, a pair of libraries, an auto pound, and an airport are among the city-owned properties that could be developed or redeveloped pending appraisals and investor interest, officials said Wednesday during a brief meeting of the Dallas City Council’s Government Performance and Financial Management Committee.
The properties under review, according to an April 23 memorandum from Assistant City Manager Robert Perez, include:
- Executive Airport
- Canton Street Service Center
- Dallas Water Utilities Property in Hutchins
- Vilbig Auto Pound
- Oak Cliff Municipal Center (OCMC)
- North Oak Cliff Library
- Park Forest Library
- Family Gateway Building
- Downtown Courts Building, fifth floor
- 606 Good Latimer
Next Steps For City-Owned Real Estate
Perez provided updates on some of the properties during Tuesday’s GPFM meeting.
Staff is eyeing the Vilbig Auto Pound, Oak Cliff Municipal Center, North Oak Cliff Library, and Park Forest Library for mixed-use redevelopment.
“We will recommend [identifying] $600,000 in funding to solicit or to utilize brokerage services as well as assistance with development [requests for proposals] for those properties,” Perez said. “The two libraries are in the 2024 bond program, so there are opportunities for funding between the Library proposition and potentially the Economic Development and/or Housing propositions for future development.”
An appraisal of the Dallas Executive Airport will cost $43,000 and be funded by the Aviation Department, Perez said in his memo. The Department of Housing and Neighborhood Revitalization has identified a potential use for the fifth floor of the downtown courts building.
“We’re looking at potentially redeveloping that for veterans,” Perez said. “We’re actually taking that off the list until we have an opportunity to put that in a [Notice of Housing Funding Availability] and see if there’s an opportunity to have a use for that.”
An appraisal for the Dallas Water Utilities facility in Hutchins is near completion.
The appraisal cost for the remaining seven properties is about $36,000, and an interdepartmental committee is seeking funding sources to complete that work, Perez said.
RFPs for the Good Latimer and Family Gateway properties will be developed in-house since those sites are relatively small.
GPFM Committee Response
GPFM Committee Chair Chad West said Perez’s update was what the committee had in mind when it requested a review of the City’s real estate portfolio. City officials learned during last year’s budget process that Dallas owned about 50,000 acres.
“We want to make sure we’re being thoughtful about how we’re going to use [these properties],” West said.
He asked that the airport property be presented at the next committee meeting since the appraisal would be complete by then. He also wanted to know more about the plan to house veterans at the courts building and what services a brokerage firm would provide.
It would be useful to have a brokerage firm on board because they have the ability to reach a wider audience, such as venture capitalists and investors, Perez said.
“They would basically actively market these opportunities and reach out to funding partners that we may not be aware of,” he said.
Plans to Sell For Pension Fund?
Councilwoman Cara Mendelsohn pointed out that the memo states that staff is looking at the 10 properties through a “development or redevelopment lens.”
“We may want to sell some of these properties for [the police and fire] pension,” she said. “I think there may be some parallel efforts happening.”
Perez said he intended to share the appraisal information with GPFM as requested.
“However, we don’t want to lose sight of the next steps of some of these items, potentially,” he said. “But yes, the committee and the council will have an opportunity to weigh in on which direction we should take.”
Mendelsohn said she was concerned that staff is ahead of where it should be with redevelopment and RFPs when “that may not be the will of the full council.”
“It’s nice that housing has an idea of what they might want to use the courts building for but if there’s another opportunity, I don’t know that it’s their decision to do that,” She said. “So I wouldn’t want to stop efforts to quantify the value or other opportunities associated with that.”
West pointed out that, at one time, several panels were looking at city-owned real estate.
“Everyone is kind of coming to the pot of the city real estate now and there needs to be one filter, whether that’s the full council getting together or at least starting here and pushing it up there,” West said. “To Chair Mendelsohn’s point, just acknowledging that these other interests beyond development are there is helpful.”
