Fair Park Advocates Push to Make Dallas’ ‘Crown Jewel’ Shine Year-Round

What is Fair Park? What is it supposed to be?

At City Hall, officials commonly refer to it as Dallas’ crown jewel. The sprawling campus of Art Deco edifices and midways has hosted an Elvis Presley concert, World Cup matches, a Martin Luther King Jr. speech and 97-consecutive Red River Rivalry games in its 140-year history. And every year, the State Fair of Texas attracts over 2 million visitors to the fairgrounds, leaving North Texas residents with their own attachments to Big Tex and the Hall of State.

The State Fair, however, only operates 24 days each fall, attendance is dropping, and the Cotton Bowl hasn’t consistently hosted major concerts since the 2000s. Structures commissioned for the Texas Centennial celebration in 1936 represented one of the largest collections of exposition-style Art Deco buildings in the world at the time, but most now sit in paint-chipped decay and need millions of dollars in repairs after years of neglect.

Questions over how to activate the grounds year-round have plagued Dallas officials for decades. City leaders have implemented plan after plan designed to maximize the campus, with most — such as the city’s now-infamous management contract with the nonprofit Fair Park First — falling short. The residential neighborhoods around Fair Park in South Dallas normally get left behind as well.

At a March Park and Recreation Board meeting, Park and Recreation Director John Jenkins called Fair Park “the toughest political issue to solve in this city.” So why does the city keep knocking its proverbial head against the wall? Fair Park’s potential isn’t up for debate. The 277-acre site sits only a few minutes away from downtown Dallas, abuts major thoroughfares like Interstate 30 and offers prime real estate that could become an economic engine for the city.

Key to the Future, Problems of the Past

Hasani Burton, a South Dallas resident and real estate investor, said unlocking Fair Park’s potential could be key to Dallas’ future.

“Here’s the reason we keep talking about it at the end of the day: it’s because of the economic potential,” Burton said. “In maximizing economic potential, flat out, we’re talking about on a local level, on a national level and as we keep aspiring to be the type of global city that we’re becoming on a global level.”

Having assumed control from Fair Park First in 2025, city officials have unveiled plans they believe will finally bring a sustainable vision to the grounds. Proposals include redeveloping parking lots into a hotel and retail district to organically create revenue for the park. The plans, they say, will bring Fair Park closer to what it should be — a year-round destination driving economic growth for neighboring communities and the city as a whole.

Dallas has struggled to keep up with the grounds for almost as long as they’ve been around. City and state officials quarreled over responsibility for Fair Park almost immediately after the end of the Centennial Celebration, and by 1985, noted Dallas architecture pundit David Dillon was comparing the city’s treatment of the 277 acres to that of an “embarrassing poor relation-eligible for periodic handouts.”

Handouts, in the form of periodic bond funding for stopgap maintenance needs, didn’t address the problem, as Dillon saw it. The real problem, “as it had been for decades,” he wrote, was the lack of a clear vision for the crown jewel’s future.

A need for an effective long-term framework was part of what drove Dallas leaders to delegate management of the grounds to Fair Park First in 2019. Billed as “public-private” at the time, the Fair Park First privatization ended after an audit found the nonprofit’s hired operations manager had misspent nearly $6 million in donor funds. By the time the City Council terminated the contract in 2024, decay was evident: maintenance requests around the park had gone unanswered, and the esplanade’s centerpiece fountain no longer spouted water.

“They didn’t change the filters for the water pumps, and it clogged all the pipes,” Daniel Wood, who represents the Fair Park area on the Park and Recreation board, said. “So it cost millions of dollars.” 

After the Fair Park First contract ended, the Park and Recreation Department and the park board were tasked with leading the revitalization. Officials have tried to tackle the most pressing maintenance concerns and added events like weekly farmers markets in an attempt to turn the traditionally seasonal venue into an everyday asset for residents.

Still, the park’s $50 million plus in estimated deferred maintenance needs far exceed the department’s financial resources. Fair Park Coliseum needs over $3 million in repairs alone, while the expected total to repair the music hall sits at roughly $1.6 million. 

Wood pointed to the city’s dubious track record of maintaining its buildings. That record is well documented and has persisted in recent years amid the debate over the future of Dallas City Hall. Reports estimate the building needs more than $350 million in deferred maintenance, as part of a $1 billion-plus total expected to fully modernize I.M. Pei’s brutalist city headquarters.

“We’re not 100% in the clear either, because it was under our control for many years and we neglected it,” Wood said. “We don’t do any better. I think we’ve learned our lesson, and we’re trying to do better now. So there’s a lot of lessons learned. There’s a lot of love for Fair Park right now. So I think we’re in a better place.”

The reason for Wood’s optimism comes from the proposal’s emphasis on a hybrid public-private model with the city operating alongside private partners and nonprofits, which he said “will hold each other accountable,” as opposed to previous unilateral management by private entities or the city.

Vana Hammond is one of two remaining members who were on the park board at the time of Fair Park First’s inception. The communications professional previously worked 12-hour shifts during the State Fair as a Dallas Police officer and said the venue has never lived “fully up to its potential” in her lifetime. She also said that she’s cautiously optimistic about the plan and thinks the city has reached a crucial point in Fair Park’s history.

“I do not think we have too many more bites out of the Fair Park apple before people are like, ‘Ah, we’ve heard about Fair Park for 10 years. Nothing’s changed,’” Hammond said.

While she said she knows now that the grounds are open to the public daily, she didn’t when she first arrived in 2013 — a misapprehension many Dallas natives operate under.

“It’s blocked off. Just walking up, you can’t see what’s going on,” Shaw said. “That’s been my experience with Texas, is that if you don’t know where to go. You may not see that you’re standing right in front of the building where all the people are inside.”

Between miles of parking lots, fences and a noticeable lack of pedestrian crossings on Fitzhugh Avenue, connecting Fair Park to the neighborhood isn’t easy. Neighborhood advocates have called for the fences to come down, and officials outlined a need to integrate Fair Park in South Dallas as one of the reasons for privatization in 2019.

Shaw said that while she’d like to see barriers come down, the real issue is marketing.

“The visibility is the problem. It’s not the fence, it’s the visibility,” Shaw said.

Since taking over, park department staff have outlined five pillars for success at Fair Park. The first focuses on fostering cooperation between campus partners, such as the African American Museum and Texas Discovery Gardens, through shared programming to increase visits. The second draws on community events like weekend farmers markets to create a draw for residents.

“Too many of our residents only experience Fair Park through the State Fair, or through Dos Equis shows, or through Broadway Dallas, or going to one of the museums,” Ryan O’Connor, senior deputy parks director, said. “But we need people. We need and want people out there all the time.”

Opening Fair Park to South Dallas residents was also a leading reason for the plan to replace parking lots on the northeast side of the campus with a 10-acre community park. Plans for the park stalled for years before the Dallas City Council approved an agreement this spring to allow Fair Park First to raise the $40 million required to build it. With a groundbreaking expected by the end of 2026, the park will have a 44-tent vendor area, green space, fitness amenities, picnic areas and a community pavilion, according to plans presented to council.

Shaw said the park represents progress toward a better future for Fair Park, where she said, “I want to see openness.”

“I want to see people. If I go to the back area, because I’m usually open there by the Women’s Museum… and I walk all the way over to the other side, the park will be behind there. So over there, I would like to see more life and little kids. There are no kids over here. Where are the kids? You know that they exist. We have two full schools, but there’s no life over there.”

“I would like to see shops in or around the hotel, and then the park on the back. And I don’t know why we’re having the hotel in front, but it needs to be visible so people know it’s there.”

The Plan

Plans for Fair Park have been a dime a dozen since 1936. The Fair Park First debacle is fresh in the memories of many Dallasites, while public-led management has time and time again failed to cover the necessary operational and maintenance expenses.

O’Connor said he knows residents will be skeptical of the plans and may wonder what has changed at the official level. He said, with the failures of private and public models in mind, that a hybrid model utilizing private partners with city oversight presents the best path forward.

“It’s just so clear that this is the path that will yield results,” O’Connor said. “We’ve done it fully ourselves. We fully privatized. Both had their significant issues, but implementing this, this hybrid model of strategically partnering with, you know, companies that are really, really successful in certain areas, it’s just so clear that that’s the right way to do it.”

As outlined by staff, the city could contract with private partners to provide security, parking, janitorial service or event management. The city has already approved a nearly $2.5 million contract with Visit Dallas to provide event-booking and sales services for major events, a third pillar of the staff’s plan for the grounds.

The park department is also planning to contract a private partner to run day-to-day operations at the Cotton Bowl, the epicenter of Fair Park which hosted major artists like Bruce Springsteen and Ozzy Osbourne in the early 1980s. O’Connor said staff traveled to the Rose Bowl to study its operations, and that the proposal to include a non-profit in the stadium’s running is largely based on the model they saw working in Pasadena. In addition to football games, the Rose Bowl also hosts community markets and major concerts, something the Cotton Bowl could benefit from.

The Cotton Bowl recently received a $140 million renovation, funded by the 2% Dallas receives from hotel occupancy tax returns under the Brimer Bill, and the funds can also be used for a variety of projects around the grounds. Along with luxury suites, air conditioning and new concourses, which will allow the stadium to continue hosting Texas-OU through at least 2036, the renovations also brought sorely-needed upgrades to backstage facilities. O’Connor said the upgrades should help draw artists.

Jenkins, who has been with the department for 33 years and led it since 2020, said the Cotton Bowl is the first step in a plan to help create a self-sustaining revenue stream to fund Fair Park operations. Which is especially important, he said, considering Dallas’ growingly constrained city budget.

“Once we get the activation of the Cotton Bowl going,” Jenkins said. “That’s going to be another revenue stream to come in. So we can put the pieces in place right today, but I need that bigger revenue stream, so I can start tackling some of those other bigger things.” 

Park Hospitality

Officials hope that revenue stream can come from the potential redevelopment of parking lots around the planned community park into a lodging and entertainment district. The district could include a hotel, retail and possibly even a sports venue. Under the proposal, surface lots would be replaced with structured parking facilities. 

Based on conversations with industry leaders, Jenkins said there is “significant” interest in developing a portion of the campus into a mixed-use district. Staff will study the potential for redevelopment and begin requesting proposals from developers in the next few months. 

He also said that, along with interest from the business community, city officials have rallied behind the plan more than what he’s seen in the past.

“It’s the first time I’ve seen this type of support from the political community,” he said. “I just haven’t seen this type of momentum before, where everybody’s trying to get behind Fair Park.” 

According to a briefing delivered to the City Council Parks Trails and Environment Committee on April 4, the plan would create revenue for Fair Park through lease agreements that would “mostly or fully fund all park and facility maintenance and operations.” Jenkins said that a mechanism to ensure revenue stays in Fair Park and isn’t diverted to the general fund will be crucial, and that state legislators may need to get involved as they did with the Brimer Bill in 2022.

The plan calls for any new development to conform with the existing character of the park. Jenkins wants to see the district take on a Western feel and said it will need to have a symbiotic relationship with State Fair operations, which have been criticized for hamstringing opportunities for year-round activation in the past.

“It has to be something that also, when the State Fair comes around, it kind of complements the State Fair,” Jenkins said. “We’ve got the cattle back there anyway. It needs to be something that you want to come from all across the world to go have that experience in Fair Park, in this entertainment venue. That’s what we’re looking for.”

The director has an ambitious goal, which O’Connor said may be aggressive: to start development in 2027. He is close to retirement, and said creating a long-term plan that sets the fairgrounds up for success is “personal” to him.

“We’re gonna be looking back two years from today, because you’re gonna see everything in motion, and we are gonna be looking back saying it was the best decision we ever made,” he said. “And I do feel like the surrounding community is finally going to say, ‘That’s the pride’ because that’s still their neighborhood. Fair Park is still their front door, and they’re going to look back and say with pride that they have this in their neighborhood, and that’s what I need them to feel.”

Fair Skepticism

Ken Smith, 72, lives in the South Dallas home he grew up in. He’s also served on community boards, worked for the city of Dallas and currently leads the South Dallas Revitalization Coalition. 

Smith agrees that Fair Park could be an “economic engine operating on all cylinders for the benefit of everybody,” but said he doesn’t have faith in the city’s ability to reverse its fortunes.

“You’re talking about a concept,” Smith said. “And I’m talking about the persons who oversaw the privatization that failed miserably in every aspect, are the same people resurrecting it.”

He was one of the lone dissenting voices in approving the Community Park agreement with Fair Park First as a member of a task force organized to oversee the agreement. The information provided to the task force was insufficient, he said, leaving him with many of the same questions he had before the nonprofit’s takeover.

“We don’t know clearly in the community what the role of Fair Park First is,” he said. “It’s the exact same issue as it was in 2018. We don’t know where they’re located.”

Along with allowing the nonprofit to oversee planning for the community park, language in the council resolution approving the agreement with the nonprofit also allows for “FPF to raise funding for the entire Fair Park.” 

While O’Connor said nonprofits will have a role in the future of Fair Park, he added “that’s not to say they will be managing anything.” However, an operations model update delivered to the park board in October noted that “a non-profit or quasi-governmental operating model may organically develop over the next 3 to 5 years.”

“It really doesn’t matter what they’re trying out,” Smith said. “The city is trying to do a mea culpa and save face. You oversaw seven years of basically setting Fair Park back multiple years after the whole privatization divide. So we’re not even starting off in the same place. We’re starting off behind where we were seven years ago. How do you account for that?”

Smith said he has no confidence in the city’s ability to revitalize Fair Park due to turnover at the city council and fragmented departmental management. The only way forward, he said, is giving the community a stake in Fair Park.

“I think that’s up to the citizens and the community to put on its big boy pants and think like leaders, and we need to work on that,” he said.

Parking lots are a symbol of South Dallas’ complicated relationship with the fairgrounds. Even after Black residents were able to attend the State Fair outside of designated “negro days,” Fair Park has failed to be a catalyst for vibrancy in the area, where some residents see a story of broken promises behind once-locked gates. As previously reported by the Observer, between 1999 and 2014, property values in the whole city increased four times faster than values near Fair Park.

Adam Bazaldua represents the South Dallas area as a City Council member. The fairgrounds were part of the reason he decided to run in 2018, and he said the history isn’t lost on him.

“For people to tell us that we’re going to invest in certain parts of the city and it’s going to trick my constituents,” Bazaldua said. “That’s not how this works. My constituents have waited long enough — the investment needs to come to their community, and we need to have policy that is driving that conversation and actually paving a way for what that future can look like. I refuse to accept that we’re going to continue to wait.”

He campaigned strongly for progress on the community park, which residents have been waiting on for over a decade. At the council meeting where the agreement was approved, he said that there is “an unnecessary level of scrutiny when it comes to having a project like this being shovel-ready” in South Dallas.

Along with most of his fellow members of the Parks, Trails and the Environment Committee, Bazaldua supports the plan proposed by staff. He said he wants small businesses from his district to be involved in the development, and believes South Dallas must benefit from the next steps.

As proposed by staff, developers would have to provide reports on local hiring, workforce development and economic benefit in the community. Bazaldua said opening a hotel “is something that’s going to provide job opportunities here” and that he wants more livable wage jobs in his district. 

If the plans to build a multi-use district come to fruition, the surrounding area is likely to see renewed investment and a rise in real estate values. Those prospects often raise alarms of gentrification, but Bazaldua said he thinks the area won’t lose its character.

“I don’t want South Dallas to be Bishop Arts 2.0, and I don’t want South Dallas to be Trinity Groves 2.0,” he said. “I believe that South Dallas can thrive and still have an identity of being South Dallas, one that is prideful for black Dallasites of many generations that feel like the growth that they see in their community is one that came for them.”

That growth is already occurring in South Dallas, and has been for years. In 2019, the Observer reported that home values in certain parts of the area had increased by 110% since 2014. 

Bazaldua said he felt the need for change is urgent, given the growth, and added that “you miss every shot you don’t take.”

“This is the moment for South Dallas,” Bazaldua said. “I think that it is absolutely critical for many reasons. One is the momentum that’s been built. And I think that speaks to that skepticism, we have momentum behind us, and if we aren’t going to take advantage of the wind that’s in our sail, then we’ve missed a huge opportunity because it hasn’t been presented to us in this way ever in the past.”

‘It Needs To Be More‘

At 73-years-old, Delphine Ganious has seen just about everything south of I-30. She’s a third-generation South Dallas homeowner living in the house where she used to pick up her grandmother for shopping trips.

Ganious remembers avoiding the fairgrounds when she was in school because she thought the food had been deep-frozen from “maybe the year before or something.” 

“As I grew older, I had a girlfriend that used to own a turkey stand at the Fair Park, and she told me all the requirements and how the food had to be fresh,” Ganious said. “So I still go sometimes just to walk around and eat.”

She said she’s heard proposal after proposal to the fairgrounds, but still doesn’t feel there’s enough of a draw to bring people in.

“They need stuff there that we can attend year-round,” she said. “And they’ve been talking about for many years, but nothing’s happening yet, as far as I know, and like I say, they need a marquee billboard or something to tell you what’s going on at the fairgrounds, because I have no idea.”

Ganious still prioritizes fresh food and said she wants to see more restaurants at Fair Park — namely a cafeteria— given South Dallas’ classification as a food desert. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, virtually all of the census tracts surrounding Fair Park are considered low-income and low-access, meaning that at least 500 people and/or 33 percent of the population live more than 1 mile from the nearest supermarket, supercenter or large grocery store.

Overall, she said, Fair Park should — and needs — to be a more vibrant part of South Dallas’ footprint.

“It needs to be more,” she said. “It needs to offer something for the community and the surrounding areas for people to enjoy year-round, every day.”