The city bought the old Hotel Miramar in North Oak Cliff for $3.5 million in 2020 to house the homeless, but it still sits vacant. The same can be said for two other sites purchased by the city last year, the Townhouse Suites building in southern Dallas and the former University General Hospital building in Oak Cliff. The old hospital cost $6.5 million, and the city spent another $5 million on the Townhouse Suites.
But as of now, no one is living at the three sites, and City Council members want to know why. Last month, council members Chad West and Paula Blackmon sent a memo to City Manager T.C. Broadnax asking for an update on the Hotel Miramar building.
“The Miramar project is particularly disappointing and also instructive of the challenges the city faces when going it alone in these projects,” the memo said. “After having purchased this property almost three years ago, significant uncertainty remains as to renovation duration and cost, as well as the cost of securing an operating partner and needed rental subsidies and tenant services.”
The council members asked for a revised plan. This would include a complete project plan that addresses both renovation of the site as well as timing, funding for operator selection, rental subsidies and tenant supportive services.
West and Blackmon said they’re also disappointed with progress on three other sites: the Townhouse Suites building, the former University General Hospital building and the Candlewood Suites building on Preston Road in Far North Dallas.
The Candlewood Suites building was turned into a family shelter after it was purchased by the city in 2020 for $6 million, but it seems as though the project could have gone more smoothly.
“While the Candlewood Suites property has been converted to a family shelter and has an excellent operator in Family Gateway, delays and snafus by several city departments have added well over $1M of avoidable cost to the city and taxed the financial resources and management time of our valued partner, Family Gateway,” the council members’ memo said.
Like the Miramar project, the hospital and Townhouse Suites projects lack complete plans, they said. Additionally, the hospital project has struggled to gain support from adjacent neighborhoods. For these reasons, the council members asked that project management for the three sites be “re-examined for adequacy relative to private-sector alternatives” and that no other properties be purchased to house the homeless until then. The city has been considering purchasing the former Elegante Hotel in northwest Dallas, also for housing purposes."... It’s like ripping open a wound.” – Dallas City Council member Chad West
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Since sending the memo, Blackmon said she still hasn’t gotten much of an explanation for the delays. It’s all made her cautious about pursuing similar projects in the future.
“We’ve spent a lot of money, and we have a lot of need,” she told the Observer. “It makes me hesitant to bring partners in to work on finding solutions that help our community when we’re having trouble just doing basic ones that we’ve set out with in the past few years, especially around homelessness.”
Blackmon is hoping to get answers about the projects soon in a briefing. "Let's just be honest," she said. "Is it cost delays? Is it that it was a lot more than what we anticipated as far as how to get things moving off center? Is it the will of the community that we need to keep working with? Let's just have an honest conversation about why we aren't moving as fast as we need to or thought we would move. That way we can come to a solution that benefits our community."
Dallas’ Housing and Homelessness Solutions Committee will get an update on the Hotel Miramar project at its meeting today. The update was outlined in a memo this month from Deputy City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert.
According to the memo, city staff is working to draft the contract for the design work to support the second phase of the project. The contract should be executed on or before Dec. 15, and the City Council will have to approve the spending for the design work, which is expected to happen on Jan. 10. This month, city staff will host feedback sessions with private-sector supportive housing developers and operators to determine how best to structure the notice of funding availability for the project. The city will start looking for a public/private partnership starting on Dec. 31.
In October, members of the city’s Housing and Homelessness Solutions Committee were told by city staff that the Miramar project could be complete by September 2024. West, who sits on the committee, expressed some frustration about the project at the time, according to the local real estate news site Candy’s Dirt.
“This is a project that, every time it comes up in my district, it generates an emotional response from people who are either supportive of it and frustrated that they can’t do anything to help it or people who were against it from the very beginning and are like, ‘I told you so. The city will never get this done,’” West said. “Every time there is not an update and there should be one, or there is an update, it’s like ripping open a wound.”
