How to bring vitality to the Dallas Arts District

By Editor On Oct 7, 2021

Maybe the third time will be the charm? Here we are if you count the grand plans to bring vibrancy to the Arts District, which is now entering middle age and has yet to deliver on the promise of its youth.

The latest entry in this long civic experiment is the Arts District Connect Plan, approved by the city council in late January. If the city actually manages it, it could be the solution the district needs to fulfill the grand vision of its conception.

A Bit of History: The Arts District was the result of a 1977 report by Boston planners Stephen Carr and Kevin Lynch calling for the city’s aging cultural facilities, mostly in Fair Park at the time, to be relocated to a single district that would contribute to renewal would be a struggling downtown. (Remember, this meant the grazing of Fair Park in historic Black South Dallas.)

The report was translated into a formal plan in 1981. Created by Boston-based Sasaki Associates, it remains the primary vision document for the district, for better or for worse. The Sasaki Plan, as it is known, established Flora Street as the tree-lined backbone of a dynamic, mixed-use neighborhood of art, retail, commercial and residential space.

It looked good on paper, but Dallas turned it into Dallas: an auto-centered commercial real estate business with no housing or access to public transportation. In 1985, Morning News architecture critic David Dillon lamented that it was “more of an art-themed office park than a cultural district” and that it would “never be funky and unconventional”.

In 2003 a new plan established the performance rooms at the eastern end of the district. It brought in more distinctive architecture but failed to solve the lingering vitality problem, and perhaps made it worse by creating two distinct zones that were divided in half by the chilling Pearl Street intersection.

The hope for the new Connect plan lies in the fact that almost all areas in the district that could be used economically have been exhausted. This is not a coincidence; The plan, unveiled in October 2018 (and essentially completed long before that), sat on the shelf for more than two years, essentially written but not approved. During this time, the district was filled with a number of commercial and residential towers.

The newest of these is the recently completed Atelier, a 41-story high-end residential tower on Flora Street in a former parking lot. When conceived, the building was to include subsidized loft-style studios for local artists, and in fact the loft apartments were included in the finished design by the Stantec architecture firm. But as is common in the Arts District, business comes before art, and these lofts are now being offered at market prices.

After the cart is properly placed in front of the horse, what remains is the Connect plan to find a way to turn this libertarian product into a cohesive unit.

The new plan was commissioned by the nonprofit Dallas Arts District Foundation, the coalition of arts organizations, corporations, and public officials campaigning for the district. Like the Sasaki original, it comes from Boston, this time from the architecture and planning office NBBJ, and by focusing on the connective tissue of the district is supposed to achieve what the previous plans did not achieve.

“That’s not sexy stuff,” says Lily Cabatu Weiss, director of the Arts District. “The basics are important, and a lot of the basics are missing or have crumbled over time.”

The Connect Plan outlines five major strategies for improving the neighborhood: converting Pearl Street into an “Avenue to the Arts”; Strengthening the integrity of Flora Street and Ann Williams Way (its extension on the east side of Routh, named after the founder of the Dallas Black Dance Theater); the transformation of Ross Avenue into a pedestrian-oriented, commercial boulevard; better orientation and digital signage and improved public art; better connection to neighboring districts.

The Dallas Arts District (Laurie Joseph / employee artist)

The Pearl Street Transformation is the headliner here. The so-called “Avenue to the Arts” would lead from Carpenter Park south through the Arts District and Klyde Warren Park to McKinney Avenue in Uptown. Various measures – street narrowing, new paving stones, median strips with public art, center block crossings, backfills, green and lighting improvements – are proposed to create a pedestrian-friendly environment that draws visitors to the heart of the district.

It would finally connect the Arts District DART stop to the district for which it is named but currently has no real relationship.

A key component of this strategy is to mitigate the disastrous intersection where Pearl meets Flora. Pedestrians have a full 15 seconds (a scant 25 if they notice the junction button) to traverse Pearl’s seven lanes. “It’s the number 1 security problem in the neighborhood,” says Weiss. “If you’re a mother with a stroller, you won’t come over. If you are a teacher accompanying a class, you will not come across. “

It is absolute madness, an affront to the art institutions in the district and an embarrassment for the city.

The problem is that any proposal for the crossing requires endless bureaucratic scramble, even if the Connect plan has been approved by the city council. “We only needed a traffic study to talk about safety,” says Weiss. That says a lot about Dallas’ priorities: Cars always come first – even in a pedestrianized art district. That is reflected in the budgeting for the intersection: $ 1 million in bond funding was allocated for this transition, far less than what would be required for such a large company.

The other “big” step in the plan involves transforming Ross Avenue, currently the underperforming back end of the neighborhood, into a mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly (again that term!) Commercial corridor that connects the West End, the Arts District and East Dallas . This required making Ross Avenue and its adjoining properties part of the Arts District zoning (technically “Planned Development” or PD, in the Dallas zoning parlance), which they weren’t – a huge victory.

In this vision, Ross becomes a real boulevard, with stripped down lanes to allow cycling, wider sidewalks, and otherwise the same standards as the rest of the borough. It’s important to note here that the recommendations (like those for Pearl) are in line with the broader 2017 Downtown Dallas 360 plan.

“This whole plan is all about the road,” said Jill Magnuson, Chair of the Arts District’s Infrastructure Committee. “Our citizens love their cars, but we actually make them work.”

While Pearl and Ross were conceptually reinvented, the changes to Flora are designed to achieve what was originally intended but never fully achieved. The idea of a busy street with cafes and shops is undermined by the physical nature of the sidewalk: three rows of cypress trees taking up too much space; a mess-paving system that presents a challenge to pedestrians (especially those with heels or with strollers); Bad light; inadequate and dilapidated street furniture. These details are important.

New standards would redesign this street scene, maintaining the original vision while giving it a practical structure. The new plan would also bring an orientation and information system into the district, with public art at key points to bolster the district’s identity, free WiFi, and digital information kiosks. The current lack of reputable information programs, not to mention pedestrians, often leaves the impression that the neighborhood is dead, despite countless events taking place every day. These steps would go a long way in changing that perception.

The final priority of the Connect Plan is to better connect with its neighbors, especially Uptown. Creating a gateway intersection at Pearl and Woodall Rodgers is an option that is being considered. One problem, however, is that the Vegas-style fountain proposed for an adjoining lot at the foot of Klyde Warren Park would undermine any attempt to create dramatic access to the area defined by public works of art.

Another issue is the Routh Street Gateway, the corridor under the Woodall Rodgers Freeway that connects Uptown and the Arts District. This is of particular concern because it is the path taken by minority majority students at Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, who park under the freeway and then walk to school.

Funds are available to fund half of this project, but the North Central Texas Governing Council, led by Michael Morris, has declined to offset the city’s contribution until a neighboring property is developed.

And so it will generally be with the Connect plan. It has all the right elements to make the Arts District the vital place it was designed to be, but there is a long way to go between getting approved and paid for and implemented. It will undoubtedly be an expensive project – and that in a time of austerity.

The choices Dallas makes will show how much it values the arts. Up until now, “Business, as usual” has been the mantra.

You get what you pay for.