City Finally Tending to South Dallas Cultural Center. Still Waiting on Motorsports Museum.

On January 29, we mentioned how the South Dallas Cultural Center was but a construction-site shell of its former self, the result of the original contractor, Harrison Quality Construction, having abandoned the project in October despite being paid $600,000 for completing far less than half the work. Two days later, the same story appeared in The Dallas Morning News and on WFAA-Channel 8. We all wanted to know the same thing: How had the city let the original contractor walk away from the project unscathed, and how come it had taken the city so long to address the matter and get the project back up and running?

Well, yesterday the city finally approved a $1.8 million deal to jumpstart the renovation, which has taken far too long and scattered the cultural center's classes to remote locations. Today, Dallas' Only Daily reports, city officials are meeting at the site with the new contractor, Reeves Construction Services, Inc., which expects to meet the September opening deadline. Which is great; fingers crossed, etc. Now, we just have one other question: When's that motorsports museum gonna open across the street? Oh, wait. We remember: Christmas 2005. Our bad. --Robert Wilonsky