A “city within a city” in Deep Ellum, housing atop fire stations, and libraries combined with recreation centers were among the ideas kicked around during a Sept. 19 meeting of the Dallas City Council’s Government Performance and Financial Management Committee.
Councilman Chad West, who chairs the GPFM Committee, recently brought up during budget discussions that the city owns about 50,000 acres, including large park parcels and Dallas Water Utilities assets that can’t be touched.
“But what about the rest of the assets?” West asked in an email to supporters. “We know that City Hall’s parking lot below the fountain is in need of drastic renovations or could one day collapse upon itself. Is it time to consider following Fort Worth’s lead and moving City Hall into a vacant office tower, opening up prime real estate for long-term leases for housing, economic development, and open space? What about the service facility in Deep Ellum? What about other parcels being held by various departments for decades?”
Dallas does not have a “housing czar or person dedicated to maximizing the use of its real estate assets across departments,” West said.
“I think it’s time we look at how we manage our book of real estate moving forward,” he added.
City of Dallas’ Real Estate Assets
Assistant Director of Public Works Ashley Eubanks provided a presentation in the Sept. 19 committee meeting.
The real estate office oversees acquisitions, relocations, leasing, tax foreclosure property, surplus property, abandonments, and licenses. The department tends to be “transactional” rather than proactively seeking deals, Eubanks said.
In order to lower the tax rate, the city needs to change some operational practices, said District 9 City Councilwoman Paula Blackmon.
“That means we may need a mixed-use community on our own property,” she said. “It’s time to reimagine and think outside the box, and become not so bureaucratic — less transactional and more visionary.”
Councilman Jesse Moreno said he’d like to incentivize departments to “scrub” their list of properties and determine what can be sold or leased rather than continuing to put Band-Aids on deteriorating sites.
“I get quite a few abandonments [in District 2],” Moreno said. “My understanding is that they typically go back to the general fund. I would like to see us explore reinvesting into nexus zones within that property to improve the infrastructure, to improve sidewalks, and to make that project stand out more. Folks are investing in that particular area. Let’s try to put those dollars back into that general area.”
Committee members discussed why the Real Estate Division falls under Public Works. Assistant City Manager Robert Perez said the structure is similar in San Antonio, but Fort Worth has a Land Management and Building Services Division. Some real estate divisions are folded into an Economic Development department, committee members said.
West pointed out that the Real Estate Division does a great job with what it’s been tasked to do.
“If this department was under Economic Development, it would be economic development-focused,” he said. “Wherever it’s placed, it’s going to be focused on that. Strategically, as far as I know, there’s not an office of strategic thinking or planning. I feel like, if there was one, that’s where this should go. You’ve got the transactional piece, but what frustrates me is we don’t have the strategic piece to go along with it.”
Lots of Land, Lots of Opportunities
The GPFM Committee has an opportunity to ensure the city is “pushing out real estate and activating it where it can generate more tax revenue and hopefully take the burden off some of our taxpayers along the way,” West said.
Public Works Director Ali Hatefi said staff has discussed establishing a committee or task force to work with city departments to identify underutilized properties and define a master plan for development.
Moreno suggested adding housing above fire stations in an effort to maximize the space.
“As we’re exploring these options I want to make sure that we make it clear to the public that parkland is treated differently,” Moreno said. “We’ll continue protecting public greenspace. There are different thresholds if we ever did want to develop or sell those parcels to private development.”
Blackmon asked how the city could monetize city-owned properties or determine whether a space could have combined uses such as a library and a fire station.
“How do we change your vision? How do we change your direction, so that way you look at it from the highest and best use?” Blackmon said to the Public Works officials. “If you can’t turn it around in two years, let’s talk about how to turn it around in two years. When we built our city, we built it in silos. Now we’re trying to undo those silos. I think this is a great opportunity with our own real estate to start changing that.”
West said he hopes the council and city staff can agree on a shared vision and support each other when taking that message before the public.
“The political reality is — as we talk about these cool concepts of putting housing on top of fire stations or a library on top of a rec center — if you do that you’re either going to need a council member to carry that through … or you’ve got to have a bunch of data that’s presented to you that’s not refutable, that’s going to say, ‘You’ve got to do this or you’re not going to meet your housing goal,’” West said. “I think we need to have some type of strategic visioning and frankly to give us political cover to say, ‘I’m OK putting eight stories of housing on top of the North Oak Cliff Library redo because we need affordable housing.’ I could muscle that through my district if I needed to, but if I had staff telling me, ‘You have to do this if you’re ever going to meet housing goals,’ it gives me the cover.”
Perez said those conversations are happening at the highest levels of city government, including mixed-use combined with housing, libraries, and fire stations.
“We do understand the idea of breaking the silos,” he said. “Those conversations are happening. Maybe we just do a better job about sharing those thoughts with committees such as this.”
