Transforming Valley View Center from a dystopian wasteland into Dallas Midtown, a mammoth, 450-acre complex of restaurants and offices and stores and apartments and retail, won’t be cheap. More than $10 billion was the figure floated when developer Scott Beck first went public with the idea last year. Most of…
You needn’t stray far from where where the Texas Horse Park’s barn and activity building are going up off Pemberton Hill Road to start finding goat skulls. A couple of feet into the mesquite trees should do; the bleached white bone is impossible to miss against the underbrush…
It used to be that, four or five times a year, Dallas would have an auction and sell its tax-foreclosed properties to the highest bidder. The last one happened on June 13, 2013, two weeks before the City Council complained that the houses were falling into the hands of slum…
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings is still officially on the fence about tearing down I-345, the two-mile stretch of freeway between downtown and Deep Ellum. He’s spent the last several months meeting with, in his words, “local business leaders, concerned citizens and the Texas Department of Transportation.” Even after meeting Tuesday…
If the Dallas City Council thought its baby-splitting compromise on single-use shopping bags (a $.05 cent fee, not a ban) could stave off the bagpocalypse of free market prophecy, they were sorely mistaken. As Kroger rep Gary Huddleston eagerly explained to WFAA on Thursday, the consequences once the new ordinance…
The casual observer will be forgiven for overlooking Councilman Lee Kleinman’s role in Dallas’ debate over plastic-bag regulations. With Dallas City Councilman Dwaine Caraway constantly sermonizing against them on the one hand, and with Sheffie Kadane and Rick Callahan’s dismissal of any attempt to regulate them as a thinly veiled…
The bloodless but brutal Plastic Bag War of 2013-14 has finally come to a close. The final battle, waged primarily through hyperbole and terrible metaphor, came today with the Dallas City Council ultimately voting 8-6 to impose a fee on single-use carryout bags at most retail stores. Under the ordinance,…
As a general rule, it’s probably best to avoid driving through Cockrell Hill. Police in the tiny hamlet, a .6-square-mile splotch in the middle of Oak Cliff, wrote 7,890 traffic tickets last year, nearly two for each of its residents. That’s doubly true if you lack proof of insurance. Each…
Karen Cameron doesn’t spend much time in her front garden anymore. Her yard, though separated from Dallas Executive Airport by Ledbetter Drive and a winding, tree-lined front driveway, is made unbearable, or at the very least extremely unpleasant, by the roaring engines and noxious jet fuel that waft over from…
It’s entirely possible that the Dallas City Council will show up on Wednesday, argue for an hour or two, then decide that it’s not quite ready to vote on banning plastic and other single-use carryout bags, Dwaine Caraway’s March-vote-or-bust pledge be damned. But, thanks to a draft of the ordinance…
If there’s any North Texas suburb known for having a healthy amount of pedestrian activity — Wait, is there? — it’s definitely not Frisco. Frisco is better suited for people in cars. But while the city’s sidewalks tend to be empty, it appears that the city is dealing with another,…
Ever since his failed bid to be the Republican Party’s nominee for President in 2012, Governor Rick Perry has been busy selling the rest of the country on Texas’ economic policies, particularly as they relate to job creation. Perry’s message to businesses across the country has been clear: Move your…
In case you haven’t been following one of the stupider developments of the primary election cycle — and there have been plenty to choose from — Buc-ee’s is officially an issue in the race to become Texas’ next lieutenant governor. To recap: Buc-ee’s is a chain of enormous roadside convenience…
If Klyde Warren Park has proved one thing, it’s that if you make a formerly blemished urban space sufficiently cool and attractive, people will do yoga there. Other things, too. The point is, the people will come. The folks who run Fair Park have taken note. Last year, as part…
Last weekend, John Ratcliffe kicked off his final campaign push by running — and successfully completing! — a 5K fun run in Rockwall. It was a strategic move, a chance to mingle with potential Republican primary voters while simultaneously reminding everyone that he, unlike incumbent U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall, isn’t…
Greg Abbott has made it clear: He is not using his Latina wife as some sort of “prop” to woo Latino voters, and he’s outraged that a Lubbock City Council member may have suggested otherwise. Never mind that the only verification of the councilman’s comment came from an anonymous source…
Dallas City Council members had no trouble finding words to describe their feelings when confronted yesterday with a $9.6 billion to-do list of infrastructure needs that runs the gamut from streets to cultural facilities to flood management. “Unbelievable” was one. “Daunting” was another. Throw in “depressing” and “scandalous,” and you’ve…
The Dallas City Council never got around to passing the marriage equality resolution Scott Griggs introduced last year. But that’s OK. In many ways the resolution passed by today goes further. It doesn’t mention marriage, but it does formally place the council in “full favor of equal rights” for Dallas’…
Last month we introduced you to Chris Mapp, a U.S. Senate hopeful from South Texas who would go on to be crushed by John Cornyn in yesterday’s Republican primary. He’s the guy who referred to illegal immigrants as “wetbacks” and said that ranchers should be allowed to shoot them on…
In the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s primary, there was a lot of chatter about how the Tea Party was losing its grip on Texas. It was a nice thought, that Ted Cruz’s antics and the constant demagoguing against the federal government had worn thin, nudging voters back to the…
Office Depot has earned a reputation in recent years for screwing over local governments. San Francisco got $4.25 million to settle claims that it overcharged for office supplies. Maricopa County claims $5.3 million in overbilling. Houston is demanding $6.6 million. All because a disgruntled corporate employee in Florida got himself…
Whatever “dramatic ideas” Dallas’ new task force will propose to revitalize Fair Park now that the summer amusement park has gone belly up are still months, if not years, away. In the meantime, the city is moving forward with smaller initiatives aimed at attracting visitors to the park. Key among…
