Dallas Fort Worth Urban Forum

The_Overdog

Another construction project sliding in under the radar - part of the Dell/EMC/NTT Data office building on Plano Parkway and near Custer Road is currently being demolished. Just ripping up the parking lot and through the concrete office portion with a bulldozer. You can still see some office equipme...

The_Overdog

Another big multifamily (2800 units in up to 25 stories) request in the same area (south Plano near US75) is probably going to be denied by the Planning and Zoning group. The request is to bulldoze the Bel Aire Oaks apartments on the corner of Alma and Plano Parkway. I have no dog in this fight, but...

The_Overdog

Right PLANO?! Plano has two large apartment buildings planned directly next to DART stations (Parker and 12th Street), and 3 more very recently constructed or under construction within 1/4 mile. Richardson has actually rejected more buildings than Plano has adjacent to transit in the past couple of...

The_Overdog

They aren't that close together in my opinion. It's over a mile from the Granite Park boardwalk to Legacy Drive shops. It's over 1/3 of a mile just to cross the DNT at the Legacy intersection, where the 'deck park' or widened pedestrian crossings are going to be. I honestly think it's going to be th...

The_Overdog

There is actually a document from a land use consultant in the same P&Z document that discussed this site that describes how Plano maximizes land value through the constrained release of residential, and therefore maximizing property tax, which is how the city is funded. Not through commercial s...

The_Overdog

I can't see the DMN article, but is this in reference to the land near Fry's? Yes, it involves demolishing Fry's and building two 5-6 story buildings on the old footprint. Since Plano has so little land left for new development (and they've limited what can be done with it), redevelopment, especial...

The_Overdog

Ground floor restaurants, upper floors for residential, and nice "outdoor" space in The Boardwalk itself... Mary Billingsly said (or one of her employees) in one of her re-zoning requests that 2nd floor over restaurant rents at a big discount in Plano so far due to the noise/smells/etc, s...

The_Overdog

Underwhelming? It's currently a long failed big box store with a giant parking lot, and the P&Z group recommends denial, based on the 'potential' of the lot. LOL, what potential? The lot behind it is empty and has always been even though the city has grown everywhere else. Even The Range ran awa...

The_Overdog

Pompous would be the names of some of these poorly made buildings with their cheap and terrible looking architecture. I Feel free to criticize the architecture and the build quality and the names (wishing the Chole had not a mis-print), but the names you gave implicated the renters, not the archite...

The_Overdog

Corporate dorms. Corporate plantation. You choose your euphemism.

How about neither, because they both sound ridiculously pompous?

It's 51% affordable units, where affordable equals earning 30-60 percent of Dallas’ median household income.

The_Overdog

and apartments (much to the chagrin of NIMBYs).

And me, since living adjacent to a highway is really unhealthy, but we built so dang highways we pretty much have no choice.

The_Overdog

Since we are talking 10 years into the future and not say like 50, I personally don't think so. I think the suburban stand-alone linear office buildings with the primary decider being high freeway access is done. There are multiple locations even along the G Bush where office buildings have been bui...

The_Overdog

Plano residents striking down the Plano Tomorrow plan will stand as one of the worst planning decisions that city has ever made and will impact the entire region for years to come. Nah. I've said my piece before about that (non)plan, but the bigger mistake Plano is currently making is not allowing ...

The_Overdog

Is DFW really that different though? I personally know of 6 100+ unit age 55+ apartment complexes in Plano under or nearing construction, 3 in Richardson, 2 in Lewisville, and 1 in Far North Dallas. How many in Irving, or the rest of Dallas and Ft Worth? They basically fly under the radar so they ar...

The_Overdog

Plano has nothing even close to that. Frisco, Allen, Richardson, and others around it have more 'attractions'. So yeah, a mall-version of a Great Wolf Lodge would fill a city need.

The_Overdog

These may seem like basic things but trust me they are not standard things for all apartments so yes they are luxury properties. So basically every apartment north of I30 is luxury, or everything that is not Section 8? Not sure I agree with that. I think they are just average apartments, neither ju...

The_Overdog

Agree. The new ChikFilA across the street is a trash development - it took down a more interesting building, Japan House, it has much much larger setbacks and even less interaction with the street than the adjacent ChickFilA it replaced. This part of Plano is lacking in a grocery store; the closest ...

The_Overdog

I look it and I see a cruise ship or a barge.

The_Overdog

Per an article in D Magazine, the clock tower is also a bell tower, and home to the 4th largest bell in the US. It is a "bronze behemoth 9 feet in diameter, weighing a bit more than 30,000 pounds. " https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2021/january/old-parkland-harlan-crow-bel...

The_Overdog

Frisco is continuing to boom and doing more and more, and all 3 of those Plano developments I mentioned are on the Frisco border. The 'border' is a giant road, and on the Frisco side is what? Ikea and some car dealerships? I don't really find Plano & Frisco comparable in the mixed-use type of d...

The_Overdog

I don't have a membership so I didn't get the full list, but Stonebriar in Frisco was also down 50%, with NorthPark down 48%. Bet the Galleria got crushed as well, so that's all the close competition, each having a larger number of stores and customer base than Willow Bend, and therefore slightly le...

The_Overdog

On-demand transportation so far has not been particularly successful at scale as replacement for public transport. There is no way underground on-demand transportation that you describe would ever work at even moderate passenger volume without basically recreating a wide highway underground.

The_Overdog

acquire the Pier 1 building on the west side of downtown

Ooooh maybe they can dig through the closets and decorate city hall very chic.

The_Overdog

There's a small courtyard in front of the Aloft. It's way too small to kick a ball around, like a lawn section of KWP, and too small for a decent sized concert.

The_Overdog

If you go early in the morning the trails around there are jammed, so I think it's just a different crowd. Also I don't think there is a true night spot (no real bar, or club) for late-night action. The design is also kind of weird -just really a single street through the middle of the high-rise off...

The_Overdog

How do you make the existing stations fair controlled? I don't think the fare-controlled access is to prevent free-riders, more to prevent opportunists from taking the escalator directly to the lower-level and loitering. The stations at the top will control loitering in the at-ground parts. If peop...

The_Overdog

If you mean downtown Dallas, then yes, but Dallas is a big sprawly city and the northern border is only about 6 miles from Frisco.

Red Oak to downtown is 18 miles vs 23 miles downtown Dallas to Frisco.

The_Overdog

I don't get the feeling Legacy is stalled at all. Plans for more Granite Park towers are in the works, the JC Penny campus stuff is moving forward, and plans for additional residential towers on the east side of DNT & Legacy are still underway. Just be patient. This one is not tall, but for exam...

The_Overdog

A few months ago, the Plano City Council rejected a proposal by the Plano Housing Authority to sale/leaseback the land east of the Parker Road Dart Station to build low-income and market-rate housing. They did put the land up for sale, and Plano Housing Authority has decided to purchase it instead f...

The_Overdog

Even Wylie H Dallas is a NIMBY now? Someone guessed that the ownership of that account changed, I guess they were right. Jon Anderson's complaints are as high-rise suburbia as they get - not enough parking, 'looming', 'ugly' blah blah blah. It's taller and will house more people? Good. It's nice to ...

The_Overdog

This is just proposed, but a company has proposed a 5 story apartment block and a 16 story apartment building adjacent to the G Bush Tollway and the SilverLine near UTD in Richardson. I think both will be student housing, mostly 4-bedrooms rented by the room instead of by the unit. The 16 story will...

The_Overdog

My reading of the report says the only outcome you could derive is 'pandemic'. Every submarket they track except West Plano/Frisco lost, and West Plano/Frisco's gain was small (110k sq ft). Rest of Plano, Richardson, Las Colinas, Irving, Denton, Garland, Allen all negative and if you are trying to m...

The_Overdog

Collin Creek only lasted from 1981 to about 2005. 2005-and beyond it was kind of a half-empty shell. So Willow Bend opened in 2001, so the 2020s are going to be it's dark period. It's too bad because I think the architecture is actually pretty solid and the parking garages are good. It's just too cl...

The_Overdog

Can you summarize? The link isn't working for me.

The_Overdog

We can be worried about downtown (and DFW in general) when projects start getting cancelled, the pipeline dries up, rent prices drop, and so on. Right now, none of that is happening. Individual text messages are not indicators of anything other than personal drama, and the texts are less severe than...

The_Overdog

IDK, that route might make the cut. The apartment to the south was on the UTD bus routes taken over by DART a few years ago and is regularly stated as one of the busiest on the UTD list. If that route was extended to 15th Street to the North it might survive. Maybe they could add a bus stop on the c...

The_Overdog

Seriously, imagine having to traverse that, back and forth, to get to a top floor parking spot each day. Could easily eat up 5 minutes if you're doing it during a congested time.

They can put a drive-thru shop on the first floor that only sells Dramamine.

The_Overdog

I personally would think they would want to downplay the fact that an electric substation is across from a rail station, instead of things that people riding a train might want to go to.

The_Overdog

Article about the tunnel being dug to stop flooding around Baylor. "On April 24, 2020, the largest hard rock TBM ever to bore in the United States began to operate." https://tunnelingonline.com/texas-mettle-tbm-and-team-are-making-progress-and-overcoming-challenges-at-mill-creek/ They shou...

The_Overdog

but I'm having a tough time envisioning this as something other than a slightly further south version of Watters Creek.

I think Watters Creek might be the among the 'nicest' urban villages/TOD without any transit connections in the US. If that's what they achieve, then it's basically a win.

The_Overdog

Completely agree. The bridge isn't even old; they should have known better. I've actually seen bikers (crazy) and joggers (insane!!) crossing it. Campbell Road needs a dedicated pedestrian crossing as well; there are tons of restaurants in walkable distance if crossing 75 was easier. There are dedic...

The_Overdog

The website is the plan. You probably were looking at the correct thing.

http://www.planotomorrow.org/150/Land-U ... ity-Design

Here are some maps:
http://www.planotomorrow.org/229/Maps-of-Plano-Tomorrow

The_Overdog

I'm not at all a NIMBY, but this plan was total nonsense, and I'm surprised citizens or the city fought it that long. Plano was not in any way 'planned', this 'plan' did not change that, and though the P&Z fought hard for the 'plan', they don't even follow it. Plano is arbitrarily spot zoned (ie...

The_Overdog

That's the plan. I wish the 'flythrough' video was playable as a first-person-shooter or driving game. I'd love to simulate the battle of Beacon Square.

The_Overdog

Billingsly is finally ready to kick off Beacon Square (mixed use across from WalMart on Coit Road). Not surprisingly, they want the amount of retail decreased. More interesting is that they suggest that restaurants in these so-so mixed-use complexes around DFW and located away from major highway cor...

The_Overdog

Now that the apartment near the Galatyn Train Station is almost complete, a builder wants to finish out the empty plot nearest the station with another complex. The zoning will need to change because it's set for a office building there, and they need a small increase in the max number of units in t...

The_Overdog

Looks like if they moved it to cover the northern suburbs, it would surround the entire DFW metroplex.

The_Overdog

Seems like that money would be better spent on planning TOD at outlying stations surrounded by big parking lots, as opposed to in the already-developed environs around the proposed D2 stations. A 'soft proposal' for selling city-owned land at a slight discount for affordable housing at the outlying...

The_Overdog

Dallas needs more church bell noise.

The_Overdog

The article doesn't say, but the signs on the fence say the land is currently owned by Dallas Water Utilities, and there is a big water tank to the south east fronting Forrest Lane, but not on this particular property.

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