Dallas Fort Worth Urban Forum

Tivo_Kenevil wrote:

potatocoins wrote:I drove through Deep Ellum this past Sunday around 1pm and the place was bustling! I really hope things continue on this trajectory and it becomes a safe and popular destination for people to hang out.

It's pretty safe.

HAHAHA

Anyone else getting concerned with the rising crime in Deep Ellum? Just over the past few weeks there have been multiple fatalities and nearly 10 people shot. I personally would not go down there at night, and I have a number of friends that feel the same way. What in the world is going on? I heard the council member for that district on the news last night talking about possibly closing several streets to vehicle traffic, and trying to come up with other solutions to curb the violence.

Phase 2 of Standard City of Dallas operating procedures. Ignore any problems until they make front page news, then go full-scale stormtrooper mode and drive all the legitimate customers and businesses away so there's nobody left to complain. Repeat every 10-15 years as necessary.

Notice how until last night the city's big emphasis on Deep Ellum has been on cops writing tickets for noise in an entertainment district known for it's live music?

The bad guys are on foot. How is closing the streets going to change anything? All that does is make it harder for money-spending customers.

There really are two Deep Ellums now. During the day it's as safe and family friendly as Disney World. Around 9-10pm theirs a shift change, and the rougher elements start moving in, especially around a few particular areas. After midnight even I stay off the streets.

The streets should be closed..at least Main and Elm. There needs to be a zero tolerance enforced within the designated area. Identify problem zones and increase police and security there.

Hannibal Lecter wrote:The bad guys are on foot. How is closing the streets going to change anything? All that does is make it harder for money-spending customers.

Would closing the streets make it easier to police the area?

It'll make it harder for people to drive within Deep Ellum on Fri/Sat nights, but how many people are doing that right now? I'm sure people who are advocating to shut the streets down only want to do so on the weekends, meaning the rest of the week it'll still be convenient for people to drive directly to places.

Are there still motorized scooters down there? Those seem to be an easy scapegoat. Get rid of the scooters, then people will stop shooting each other.

Kelley USA wrote:Anyone else getting concerned with the rising crime in Deep Ellum? Just over the past few weeks there have been multiple fatalities and nearly 10 people shot. I personally would not go down there at night, and I have a number of friends that feel the same way. What in the world is going on? I heard the council member for that district on the news last night talking about possibly closing several streets to vehicle traffic, and trying to come up with other solutions to curb the violence.

Sadly, this kind of violence is swamping urban America. Sixth Street in Austin has had issues, while many other cities are overwhelmed with random shoot outs between thugs & gang members. This kind of violence will certainly persuade people not to go to areas where random gun fights & crime are pervasive. Deep Ellum will become an abandoned portion of the city unless the police & city officials clamp down on the perpetrators, who are going into this area with malicious behavior in mind.

Yea, it’s definitely not just a Dallas issue.

Thanks Obama

Is the underage curfew still in place? If not, they might need to consider that again as just one part of a bigger plan. If they don’t move quickly, I foresee Deep Ellum collapsing, again. It’s really a shame, as it has so much potential and is really a unique area that most cities would love to have.

How do New Orleans police handle the french quarter crime problems? As long as Deep Ellum remains the only party scene in North Texas, the crowds need the same policing protection approach found in other more famous party scenes.

Kelley USA wrote:Anyone else getting concerned with the rising crime in Deep Ellum? Just over the past few weeks there have been multiple fatalities and nearly 10 people shot. I personally would not go down there at night, and I have a number of friends that feel the same way. What in the world is going on? I heard the council member for that district on the news last night talking about possibly closing several streets to vehicle traffic, and trying to come up with other solutions to curb the violence.

My sibling lives there currently and she does not go out past 11PM. It sounds like an awful area to live in, especially if you're female. Thank God she has a dog.

Mr. Amsterdam wrote:

Kelley USA wrote:Anyone else getting concerned with the rising crime in Deep Ellum? Just over the past few weeks there have been multiple fatalities and nearly 10 people shot. I personally would not go down there at night, and I have a number of friends that feel the same way. What in the world is going on? I heard the council member for that district on the news last night talking about possibly closing several streets to vehicle traffic, and trying to come up with other solutions to curb the violence.

My sibling lives there currently and she does not go out past 11PM. It sounds like an awful area to live in, especially if you're female. Thank God she has a dog.

Hopefully she's packing too.

Not sure it would work here, but they could maybe try something like Beale Street in Memphis. They were having similar issues and started charging a nominal ($5ish) cover to enter the area through security checkpoints. Seems like that would cut down on the loitering crowd / minors who seem to be causing most of the violence.

st0760 wrote:Not sure it would work here, but they could maybe try something like Beale Street in Memphis. They were having similar issues and started charging a nominal ($5ish) cover to enter the area through security checkpoints. Seems like that would cut down on the loitering crowd / minors who seem to be causing most of the violence.

Man this would be amazing if they could figure out a proper way to do this. But my fear is that it requires setting up some sort of wall around the entire area.

Blocking off the street would mean you can't have people showboating in their cars, which would be a big plus. I heard that about a decade ago, DPD used to issue tickets to any cars that were making laps of the area.

Does 6th Street have these problems? I haven't been down to 6th in quite a while, so I know it's not THE only place to hang in Austin, but I feel like it is similar.

Just seems weird to me the Deep Ellum has had these kind of problems in two different iterations decades apart.

Its called "cruising" and the city cracks down on it all he time in areas like this and I would happily support cutting down on cruising as another deterrent if its actually a problem. The question is always how much police presence is too much and how much is too little. Too much and you run off even good clientele who don't want to feel like they are being babysat. Too little and you get what we have now children acting a fool without any care in the world.

What's sad is this is also the businesses owners faults they are serving some type of customer that is attracting some of this element consistently. If you want your bar to survive you kick out the riff raff, trouble makers and coordinate with your fellow bars/business owners to show intolerance to stupid behavior. When it comes to the street and the public space aka sidewalk you work with the police to call it out every single time some rando is acting a fool in front of your business. Even the gay bars have code words for telling each other TABC is nearby. Course the gay bars also have private security...

Deep Ellum already has a community association that is super active, what do they say is the issue? I trust them to have some reasonable idea what's not working.

I have no clue how to solve the issue because a lot of times, it's really just some stupid argument transpiring into a shootout. Two dudes arguing about some petty shit, one pulls out a gun and starts dumping. Ego hurt or fighting over a woman, same shit happens in Austin when I'm down there.

Don't know how to fix it and know it's more complicated than what I said above, but shit, I hope it's fixed soon. I'd hate to see Deep Ellum die more than just about anything else.

Looks like the building at 2800 Taylor is targeted for an 8-story residential building (5 over 3). Assuming that's the actual address of the project and not the one filed, which is (lol) where Omniplan is located.

https://www.tdlr.texas.gov/TABS/Search/ ... 2022003575



Team:
https://www.stillwatercap.com/properties/
https://www.omniplan.com/work/index.html

Google streetview going back to the year 2007 shows 2800 Taylor being occupied by a printing company.

This just seems like the kind of place you'd expect a midrise residential building to pop up, so it seems plausible.

Braindead Brewing closing tomorrow, Nov 28. Bummer.

https://dallas.culturemap.com/news/rest ... m-closing/

New tower crane going up this morning. Looks to be at the "Good E" (God, I hate that name) development, though it might be nearby.

Hannibal Lecter wrote:New tower crane going up this morning. Looks to be at the "Good E" (God, I hate that name) development, though it might be nearby.

Do we have any sort of timeline as to when we expect this development to be completed? I drove by it not too long ago and it seemed like construction was well under way.

^ https://theretailconnection.net/wp-cont ... .22.21.pdf

"Coming soon spring 2022"

Chicago developer eyes Deep Ellum office project start
New high-rise office in the works just east of downtown Dallas.

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/rea ... ect-start/

Glad to see an update on this project, looks like it should be getting started in a few months time (this summer per the article).

Also, another tidbit from the article:
With demand for office space expected to increase in Dallas this year, developers are gearing up for a new round of office starts on downtown’s north side in Uptown.

Ad agency TRG will relocate to The Stack Deep Ellum; building is now 100% leased

https://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news ... hines.html

So this is great news and it bodes well for the Assembly. But I wonder why are we not getting similar news for the Epic?

I went by the Stack this week. The fake brick facade on the garage floors looks pretty good. In fact, I doubt that passers by who don’t know will notice.

Assume that real masonry was not in the budget. I am wondering would I rather have this facade, which does blend into the neighborhood, or more of what’s above it which would be more honest, but arguably out of place too?

willyk wrote:I went by the Stack this week. The fake brick facade on the garage floors looks pretty good. In fact, I doubt that passers by who don’t know will notice.

Assume that real masonry was not in the budget. I am wondering would I rather have this facade, which does blend into the neighborhood, or more of what’s above it which would be more honest, but arguably out of place too?

All I know is that I still hate the blank, white, unfinished looking wall on the southern side of The Stack.

Why can't they paint the blank wall with some art? It would look much better than it does now.

^^^Right. A mural would look dope. That blank wall looks horrible.

BTW did anyone see these new renderings of the Good E Project across from The Epic?

https://theretailconnection.net/wp-cont ... .12.22.pdf

Old: https://theretailconnection.net/propert ... dallas-tx/

dallaz wrote:^^^Right. A mural would look dope. That blank wall looks horrible.

BTW did anyone see these new renderings of the Good E Project across from The Epic?

https://theretailconnection.net/wp-cont ... .12.22.pdf

Old: https://theretailconnection.net/propert ... dallas-tx/

Props to whoever's job it was to pull literally every single Deep Ellum business logo for these graphics...

dallaz wrote:^^^Right. A mural would look dope. That blank wall looks horrible.

BTW did anyone see these new renderings of the Good E Project across from The Epic?

https://theretailconnection.net/wp-cont ... .12.22.pdf

Old: https://theretailconnection.net/propert ... dallas-tx/

Hmm, good catch. Not sure if I prefer old or new, but at least the changes aren't terribly significant. Still want to see this happen ASAP.

willyk wrote:Ad agency TRG will relocate to The Stack Deep Ellum; building is now 100% leased

https://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news ... hines.html

It didn't seem like TRG was at their "the Borg cube in Uptown" building very long before this news came about.

That's so odd that they're moving after having (seemingly) just built that building. I don't have access to the article but I wonder what's leading to their relo. Distancing from the former CEO/founder? Cutting costs? I wonder.

It was posted in Dallas morning news that they are moving into a smaller space

"The move to the building just east of downtown comes months after the advertising firm’s longtime headquarters on North Central Expressway was sold to a group of investors.

TRG’s new office in Deep Ellum is less than half the size of its old headquarters tower in the Cityplace development north of downtown.

“TRG is a Dallas agency through and through, and we chose earlier this year to build on our successful refresh in 2021 by joining The Stack Deep Ellum,” TRG CEO Glenn Dady said in a statement. “The neighborhood’s energy and the excitement of the surrounding thriving businesses in the heart of the city we love make it the perfect place to continue growing creatively in a unique space that puts us at the forefront of the advertising landscape. We’re thrilled to move to our new home early next year.”

Does anyone know if any new leases for retail have been signed at the Epic?

Also, what’s going on with the space next to Citizen?

New bar in Dallas' Deep Ellum brings back good old Hot Topic days
Anew bar in Dallas is championing an era that should never be forgotten. Called Shot Topic, it's a small Deep Ellum spot that celebrates punk rock, with a particular homage to Hot Topic, the mall chain that specializes in plaid kilts, rad hair color, and other punk and counterculture clothing and accessories.

Located at 108 South Crowdus St., in a small, long-vacant storefront next to Buzzbrews, the bar actually feels like a Hot Topic store: black light, vivid patches of neon, ska-style black & white checks, black walls with white graffiti band names, and a focus on punk and emo bands from the 2005-2012 era.

https://www.dallasobserver.com/music/so ... c-13789600

Looks neat to me. I like that's trying to differentiate itself from some of the other trendy cocktail bars that are opening up these days.

This will be a great addition to Deep Ellum.

...how pretentious

What next Spencers Gifts the Bar with disco lights and lava lamps amass? or maybe Earth Bound Trading Company will make a comeback with a Kombucha/matcha/hemp driven bar offering? Can we at least please have a Radio Shack live music venue at least!

Definitely need to bring in more diverse concepts to the neighborhood.

R1070 wrote:Definitely need to bring in more diverse concepts to the neighborhood.

Agreed. I know this isn't a 1:1 comparison as far as type of venue, but I'm still super excited for Komodo.

R1070 wrote:Definitely need to bring in more diverse concepts to the neighborhood.

Velvet Taco is coming to Good E too. The concept is kind of irreverent, yet kind of corporate. A good fit for that space.

https://dallas.culturemap.com/news/rest ... 56-elm-st/

willyk wrote:Velvet Taco is coming to Good E too. The concept is kind of irreverent, yet kind of corporate. A good fit for that space.

Haha, well said. I find the place to be completely overhyped, but it's a good fit for this area and should do really well.

New apartment tower is on the way near Dallas’ Deep Ellum

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/rea ... eep-ellum/

“The Juniper, as we’re calling it, is a mixed-use project that will consist of 19 levels with 338 apartment units, ground floor retail and an adjacent park,” said Larkspur Capital’s Carl Anderson. " We expect to clear the site in September followed by construction commencing in November.

Basically right up against I-30, interesting. Nice to see height pushing so close to Fair Park.

Tnexster wrote:Basically right up against I-30, interesting. Nice to see height pushing so close to Fair Park.

You love to see it

The Juniper (this new tower) is now on the DFW Development Projects map (Google My Maps) and has been added to my development project tracker.
Added The Willow to mine, too (can't believe forgot to add that after putting on the map).

Just an FYI for those of y'all who like to reference those!

July 2022 Edit: DFW Development Map is dead since some idiot thought it'd be funny to wipe 80% of new projects added since mid-2020