Deck Park Will Be City's "Oceanfront Property"

• Wick...that was satire, right? Otherwise, I'll be by this weekend to sample your stash. I need a break from reality. Maybe then I'll fit in better around here.

• Uncanny! He got that patrician accent just right!

• Bill, this Wick is the Rich Little of blog commenters. A very deft impressionist.

• How do we know if "Wick" is THAT Wick?

• For once, I agree with ... ahem ... "Wick."

• However one approaches it, the deck park will prove a marvelous amenity for those who live and work in downtown or, indeed, Uptown. Every great city must have its signature unifying feature. After all, Los Angeles has its beaches. Paris, its Seine. And our burgeoning Arts District deserves no less than this magnificent testament to the spirit of the fine men and women who make this town hum. Never content to rest on their laurels, these same visionaries are, as we speak, pushing forward with another public works project cut from the same rarefied cloth as Golden Gate Park or the Bois de Bologne. They may have hit a hitch, but rest assured they'll take it in stride. Three cheers for our own homegrown visionaries! As for the naysayers, suffice it to say we expected you. Life in the peanut gallery doubtless has its charms and consolations, but take note that there is always room in the winner's circle in Dallas, Texas. All one need do is show some spark. Now get to work, man! --W

• To "Wanna": Apparently skipped those classes in logic, did we?

• And again, I say, I want the job making the little models for the city. Never-ending job security!

• Actually, the idea of surrounding the downtown core with green space has been floating around for some time: creating a series of interconnected parks (decked or otherwise) called the Emerald Bracelet. Of course, I prefer the name Pearl Necklace.

• While's it's understandably difficult to look at the merits of local developments on a project by project basis based on the city's poor record, I personally think it's important to attempt to do so. I own many albums where there's a least one song worth listening to even though the rest of the album sucks. Maybe I'm just biased when it comes to getting excited by anything that might add some much needed improvement to our downtown environment. What used to be an edge is now a void that could and should be filled. The area in question his gone through a major redevelopment on both sides of Woodall Rogers in the last 20 years, so, personally, the location of linking these areas with a park makes some actual sense to me. It's going to have warts (this is Dallas afterall), but glass half full is I.

• You're right Bill...but why stop with merely decking only 1,600 feet of ugly highway for $80,000,000? As James points out, its incredible, so why not be incredible around the entire perimeter of the CBD. Why not deck the entire the entire ring of highways which surround Dallas. If a little is a good thing, a lot is even better. Right? I'm still trying to figure out how we will ever become a world class city with only four Calatrava bridges...but that's another thread.

• Robert- I was actually kidding.... USA Today is a horrible, horrible newspaper. If I travel, my hotel often leaves it outside my door and I am occasionally bored enough to read it. I always regret it.

• Development around the deck park has been incredible... If you do your research you'll find a number of new buildings that were built that all cited the deck park as being a major factor. No doubt this is a game changer! It'll be great for Dallas! As for the curent condition of city parks, I've actually noticed several city parks that are being enhanced (see Cole Park and Griggs Park)...

• To the person who wants to be known as "Wanna": Cost-benefits ratio? And what do you enter on the "costs" side of the ledger and what on the "benefits" side? I take it you do not view a highway that slices off a considerable chunk of the city, isolating downtown, is not a "cost." And healing that cut, providing green space, knitting the city back together, is not counted as as "benefit?" Maybe you're just saying this won't be a big money maker for Dallas businesses. Is that it?

• Thanks Bill, for speaking for everyone who is not in favor of the deck park. Its comforting to know that you can read the minds of those who disagree with you. My criticism is based on the cost-benefit ratio, which is poor due to the location and size of the park, and the fact that at a time when the city and country are facing massive budget short-falls, frills like deck parks are inappropriate. You may also want to visits some of the existing Dallas parks that are being neglected, and watch as neighborhood pools shuttered this summer for lack of funds. Its a matter of budgets and priorities.

• I think the mayor and the city council should take a day to poop on the park and say they hate it and that construction should halt immediately... just to see how many people will suddenly support the park in opposition to the mayor. Wasn't there a Bugs Bunny episode about this? "Wabbit season...Duck season! Duck season...Wabbit season!!"

• The misconceived Trinity Project certainly dirtied the water for every city project, worthy or unworthy, that came after. Schutze was heroically right -- and eloquent -- on that one, to give him credit. He does, however, have a visceral reaction to big projects, one shared by many commenters here. One begins to suspect he doesn't really like cities. He likes neighborhoods. (Well, who doesn't?) But the mess and scale of a big city frighten the daylights out of him.

• Bill, I think this comment from "ts" on April 22 might maybe could possibly answer your question concerning opposition to the park: "Haters gonna hate. I wonder how this would have been received if the Trinity debacle had never occurred? This is a bridge I personally approve of and might actually use."

• Doug- there are tons of economic benefits to the park which were commissioned beforehand. Also, the park will be self sustaining so your ROI question is irrelevant.

• I don't care what you'll say. You can't piss me off. This park is going to be a game changer for Dallas - and in a good way (not like the toll road park - game changer in a bad way - if the toll road happens). And all the better that it is happening with a combination of public and private money and effort. By the way - I do agree - oceanfront is kinda a stretch, just like riverfront.

• Opposition to this project mystifies me. A lot of it can probably be traced to the "If the city wants to do it, I'm agin it" attitude that seems endemic to Dallas. (A well-known Observer columnist leads the cheering section for this crowd.) But what accounts for the rest? Highways lacerate cities. The great freeway-building mania of the 1960s and '70s, whatever it may have done to elevate the automobile to the status of an American fetish object, pretty much unraveled what city structure remained. These roof-over parks are a powerful way to ameliorate the damage. Those who criticise them need to get out of their cars and walk around.

• JF, I like to credit those who send stories whenever possible, simple as that. I can't and don't do this alone, and the Friends' submissions are greatly appreciated.

• Why do the renderings/models never show all the homeless people pooping? Won't that be the primary function of the place?

• "It's an economic engine". Really. And what data does she have to back that up? Given the almost obscene cost/acre to build...not to mention the cost to maintain...I wonder what the ROI is. Maybe some of the people who threw gazillions of dollars at this could be pursuaded to toss some at the Dallas schools to get the water running.

• I'm glad that you were clear about who found this article. You wouldn't want anyone here to assume that the Observer writers are reading USA Today.

• I think we've already got a cottage industry of "creating oceanfront property" around here. Or at least trying to.

• I suppose it could be oceanfront, once the levee fails during a good rain and Woodall Rogers turns into a raging river.

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