Dallas Wants to Turn These Downtown Parking Lots into Urban Parkland (Photos/Renderings)

By Eric Nicholson Fri., Feb. 8 2013 at 7:09 AM

Yesterday, the city of Dallas presented its new vision for downtown Dallas parks. As the Morning News pointed out, the plan calls for the amount of green space in and around the Central Business District to roughly double over the next several years.

That includes four "priority parks" -- Pacific Plaza, West End Plaza, Carpenter Plaza and Harwood Park -- as well as a handful of others. You can browse through the plan here.

There are a lot of pieces that would have to fall into place for the plan to become a reality. Money, for one, and some landowners willing to sell their land to the city. But those are details for another day. For now, starting with Pacific Plaza above, take a Google Maps tour of the properties the city hopes to transform into downtown parkland.

Carpenter Plaza:

West End Plaza:

Harwood Park:

Bow Tie Park:

Taylor Fields:

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joesailedaway

the parks would be a better place for the homeless to camp..

scottindallas topcommenter

why can't they leave the parking lots, and simply expand the sidewalks to be a parklike walk. That first park rendering seems fucking stupid. Who really want's to go stand in the middle of that? Rather, if the same style were applied and made to create a slightly meandering extra wide/green walk, with niches to sit and collect. Taking the whole lot is excessive, expensive and should be something the city is leery to take.

I mean, what do you think? Do you really want a fuckload of parks in Downtown, or a greener, sidewalk, with niches to sit, pause, gather, smoke whatever?

MikeWestEast

Harwood Park is the building housing the old offices of Paramount Pictures. That is a renovated building, not some beat up shell of a warehouse. It was on market for 1.8 mm. I wonder if the city told the owner or will he or she get a surprise in tomorrow's DMN.

blowmetone

So when there is no place left to park who is going to use the park? Homeless vagrants.

Let's fuck over actual tax paying, revenue generating working people to placate smug idiots like Mike Dunlap

lisareneemerito

@blowmetone I, for one, would prefer you keep your car out of downtown. Every train and bus in the city will take you downtown. Driving there is a waste of resources.

BrandenHelms

@blowmetone There are 30,000 surface parking spaces downtown and another 30,000 or so in garages. I don't think you'll miss a couple of hundred.

monstruss

1 Like

oh cool, more places to frack the shit out of.

Scruffygeist topcommenter

1 Like

So Carpenter Plaza's plan is to rip out or transplant perfectly healthy existing trees just to arrange them neatly into rows? Leave 'em be, morons.

Montemalone topcommenter

1 Like

@Scruffygeist Kinda like chopping down trees so an advertisement can be plastered onto the side of a building.

Daniel

4 Like

Harwood Plaza appears to involve tearing down residences or small "creative class" offices (hard to tell) occupying a 100-or-so-year-old building. Bow Tie Park may or may not appear to involve tearing down one of the coolest buildings in downtown Dallas (looks like a piece of shit in the photo, but the front elevation is killer).

I'm all for downtown parks, but not at the expense of what little existing fine-grain urban fabric we have left.

Myrna.Minkoff-Katz topcommenter

1 Like

This is all lovely. But, there is an existing park in the very center of downtown, Thanksgiving Square, that has been left to go to pot. This once beautiful sunken park with a waterfall, bell tower and a fine little chapel, is a sad wreck. Even the sign on the wall reads, "Thank ivin Squar".

BrandenHelms

@Myrna.Minkoff-Katz Thanksgiving Square is privately owned.

downtownworker

3 Like

@Myrna.Minkoff-Katz How about connecting the other forgotten downtown park, Heritage Village, with the Farmers Market by turning South Harwood into a mini deck park?

I like this new parks master plan, but I think it lacks big ideas.