Looks like this is the last we’ll write of Chad Lacerte and his Dallas Watersports Complex, once slated to become a West Dallas destination on Fish Trap Lake till the Dallas Housing Authority stepped in and drowned the deal last summer. Lacerte’s already said he’s taking his wakeboarding operation to…
True to his word, Jason Roberts just posted to Better Block more info about his plans for a trail connecting the Katy Trail to the Bishop Arts District, which we first mentioned in late June. But, of course, Roberts isn’t doing this alone: It’s a massive operation involving, among others,…
About a month back we espied the winning entries in the CityDesign Studio’s competition intended to find someone to artistically hide that Oncor power station at the western foot of the Margaret Hunt Hill lest those headed to Ray’s come spring find it unpalatable. (Keeping in mind, of course, that…
Seven months ago was when we got our last comment on this item about Rebecca Miller’s post-Channel 5 cake-makin’ plans following her unceremonious dismissal from the NBC owned-and-operated — and it ran in March of ’08. Of course, can still be seen delivering the weather on local TV — as…
Observer’er Daniel Rodrigue espied this offering on Craigslist: “kennedy assassination morning news printing plate.” Then, he asked, “Shouldn’t this be in a museum or something?” Sure, along with most everything Heritage auctions. That’s the way historic artifacts go. Still, curious, I called the owner to ask about their provenance. The…
A couple of months back we mentioned Jason Roberts’s plan to connect North Oak Cliff with the southernmost tip of the Katy Trail via a nine-mile trail along and across the Trinity River — one he’d hoped to have wrapped within 90 days. And, lookie here, says the Better Blocker:…
Found this on Vimeo: a nice Nike ad starring a chatty Dirk Nowitzki shot in Würzberg, Germany, his hometown. Hence, perhaps, the stroll down Memory Lane … to the tennis courts, scene of his earliest victories. Ah — this is the same spot Jeff Caplan mentioned this morning on ESPNDallas,…
Drove by Davy Crockett two weeks ago and espied the still-up sign noting that the Dallas ISD was taking bids on the city-designated historic landmark, which turns 108 this year and was the oldest school in use when the district shuttered it in January 1989. We’ve written about the property…
I like that camo draping those wooden picnic tables on the site of the former Alamo Plaza Hotel Courts at Sylvan and Fort Worth Avenue — very M*A*S*H. In recent months, of course, that’s been the site of the Cox Farms outdoor market, a sorta sneak peek at what’s to…
More than 450 current and former property owners at a Lake Whitney residential golf community, including dozens of locals, are suing Dallas-based developer Double Diamond, Inc., claiming they were charged exorbitant fees by a puppet property owners’ association that funneled the proceeds directly to the company. In some cases, the…
Driving through downtown earlier this week I couldn’t help but notice: First Baptist Dallas is erecting its new downtown campus with remarkable speed. Seems like only yesterday Tom Leppert, Mark Lovvorn and Robert Jeffress were pressin’ The Big Red Button. But according to this nicely done look-see just posted to…
A few days ago I was offered at a rather reasonable price a small but estimable stash of local relics, dating as far back as a thick, musty scrapbook of 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition newspaper clippings that belonged to Otto Herald, its general manager. (We’ll get to that, oh, next…
Residents of Jubilee Park, the neighborhood of modest single-family homes just north of Fair Park, have become conditioned to distrust, if not fear, the Dallas Independent School District. For as long as we can recall, DISD has grappled with plans for a new O.M. Elementary school in the area, and…
Three months ago we looked at a plan to bail out Denton’s beleaguered Golden Triangle Mall, which just last year fell into foreclosure and went up for auction. That plan: Give The MGHerring Group (developer of The Village at Fairview and The Village at Allen) and Cencor Realty Services (an…
What you see above is the second part of a Dallas Mavericks history-of posted on RetroMavs, the team’s official throwback site, only yesterday. Hunh. Don’t recall Reunion Arena ever being that empty … but I also don’t recall Ollie Mack possessing “NBA-class moves.” Anyway. That reminds me: In about an…
Not so long ago we looked at Noah Jeppson’s plan to map out the downtown tunnels — which he did get funded, with $30 to spare. But Jeppson, a designer and downtown denizen, has found yet another way to brighten up downtown — by turning 20 metered parking parking spaces…
This morning, MediaBistro directs our attention to Uncle Barky’s item from yesterday about former KXAS’er Grant Stinchfield, who, after seven years on the job, left the NBC owned-and-operated in April so he could run for the U.S. House of Representatives. Stinchfield, whose wife Amy Vanderoef co-hosts WFAA’s Good Morning Texas,…
Speaking of the Trinity River … Perhaps I didn’t end up visiting the under-construction Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge on the best day for our ongoing Unfair Park series, “Sweaty Dispatches From a Sweltering City.” While I was out on the pavement girded with Italian steel early Thursday afternoon, there were…
Don’t tell the bossman, but the University of North Texas done found someone to pony up puh-lenty for the naming rights to the new football stadium. Per a press release just sent out, Apogee will spend $20 million over the next 20 years to rebrand the new $79-million Mean Green…
This morning, as expected, Turkish developer Mukemmel “Mike” Sarimsakci sat among city officials in charge of downtown development at a meeting table flanked by colorful posters representing the future of 1401 Elm, the 1.3-million-square-foot office building that’s been vacant since January of 2010. The developer’s contract to purchase the property…
The video below, in which Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price explains the hard way to WFAA’s Brett Shipp that his office isn’t public property, has been updated; it’s the piece that ran on Channel 8 last night at 10, in which you do hear Price tell Shipp, in a…
Just came across this video on Vimeo, posted yesterday by Texas A&M environmental-design grad Katie Ogden, who’s spending the summer interning at the LBJ offices of architectural firm Gensler. It begins as a history of Deep Ellum, then rolls out current stats — as in, how much of the neighborhood’s…
