Yesterday, I attended the “groundmaking” for the Woodall Rodgers Park, a 5.2 acre deck park that will be constructed above the Woodall Rodgers Freeway between Pearl and St. Paul streets.

I’ve had the opportunity to work closely with the Woodall Rodgers Park Foundation (the non-profit that has raised private funds for the park and which will operate and maintain the park).  Over the last several years, I’ve worked with the Foundation to ensure that the park was included in the 2006 bond program, to make Harwood Street pedestrian-only within the park, and to coordinate with surrounding stakeholders.  In 2006, I joined them in visiting Millennium Park in Chicago and Bryant Park in New York City.  In addition to touring the parks, we visited with community leaders who had been key to the parks’ creation.

The Real Estate Council sponsored a breakfast before the groundmaking ceremony.  TREC has been instrumental in the park’s creation — originating the concept and providing seed money.  The breakfast featured Tony Jones (pictured), Chancellor of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, who gave a very engaging presentation on “Millennium Park, Chicago: Art, Entertainment and Economics, a model for Woodall Rodgers Park and Downtown Dallas.”

You can check out some pictures from the breakfast and groundmaking as well as from our 2006 trip.

However, I didn’t like the fact that this was rushed through, and several councilmembers also voiced their concern that this proposal was moving too fast.  The council had only been briefed about the matter the week before.  The mayor and others argued that this idea has been floating around for a decade, I suppose implying that we had gotten plenty of notice.  But an idea floating around in the ether is far different from a concrete proposal, and a week is too little time to really digest such a significant change to one of our largest assets.

The proposal suggested that the city retain ownership of the zoo property but that the zoological society manage day-to-day zoo operations and assume ownership of the animals.  The city would pay an annual flat fee (adjusted for inflation) to the zoological society for managing the zoo, and the society would pick up expenses beyond that.

As I reviewed the proposal, I kept thinking of possible problems (that’s what I do when I review city proposals — I look at them very critically and try to find holes or problems or unintended consequences that need to be fixed; blame it on the lawyer in me).  I was pleased that almost every concern was addressed.

Nearly all of the top zoos in the country (including our neighbor to the west, Fort Worth) are run this way.  And this isn’t a new paradigm for Dallas:  many current city facilities are managed in this way, where the city owns the building and a non-profit runs the operations:  the Dallas Arboretum, and Dallas Center for the Performing Arts, and the Dallas Museum of Art, to name a few.

Chief among the benefits of this structure is that the non-profit will be able to raise more money for the zoo’s operation.  Right now, few philanthropists want to give money to the city to run the zoo, because there’s no guarantee there will actually be an increase in the funding the zoo receives: the city could graciously accept the check, then turn around and reduce the zoo’s budget by the same amount, with no net gain.  Also, our zoo has the potential to be a nationally-recognized attraction, but the city doesn’t have the resources to take it to the next level.  This can be an opportunity for a great transformation at our zoo.

There were a few remaining issues that needed to be addressed before I could support this proposal, and I met with the director of the park department, the zoo director, and the director of the zoological society to discuss my concerns.  In the end, I made sure we had three important elements included in the management agreement:  a requirement that the public can access records related to animal health and welfare, a whistle-blower clause so if someone sees animal cruelty, they can report it without fear of losing their job, and financial auditing and oversight by the city.

Nancy Visser with the Dallas Morning News provides an update on a great new amenity in East Dallas: “Santa Fe Trail Opens in East Dallas with Legwork to Come.”

The city laid the groundwork by building the trail, but like the Katy Trail, it’ll be the friends groups that take the Santa Fe Trail to the next level. The surrounding community, the Santa Fe Trail Neighborhood Association and Crime Watch, and the Friends of the Santa Fe Trail are working together to make this a clean, safe trail. My hat’s off to them for adopting this new trail to make it a great asset for East Dallas.

In the meantime, I’m going to keep pushing the city to put in stop lights/signs for traffic at Beacon and other major streets. Right now, there are no stop signs for cars, but there ARE stop signs for trail users, if you can believe that. I’ve never seen an SUV hit by a pedestrian, so that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

I’m still trying to understand what has caused a year and a half delay, but from what I understand, it was related to problems coordinating with the Texas Department of Transportation (with whom we’re partnering on this).

Here’s the new schedule, below. I’ll update the timeline on the East Dallas Veloway page, but I’m also going to leave the “old” schedule up so we can keep track of shifts in the timeline.

NEW SCHEDULE
Phase 2 (Randall Park south to I-30):
Feb. 2008 – Construction contract awarded
Apr. 2008 – Construction for phase 2 begins
Aug. 2009 – Construction for phase 2 completed

Phase 1 (Randall Park north to White Rock):
Feb. 2008 – Authorize construction contract w/TXDOT
Summer 2008 – Construction contract for phase 1 awarded
Fall 2009 – Construction for phase 1 completed

See my East Dallas Veloway page for a map.

I think that this is one of the most exciting projects in our city right now. Currently, Woodall creates a moat around Downtown, and we have no central park for our city. We are in desperate need of greenspace as our Downtown and Uptown areas become more densely populated.

There are a couple of issues I feel strongly about related to the park. One, we need to close down Harwood and Olive streets within the park, rather than having the park sliced into three sections. A single piece of parkland is much more useable than three sections with cars whizzing past. The street closure won’t create a serious traffic burden because those two streets are the least traveled between uptown and downtown, and folks can simply drive either one block to Pearl or St. Paul to reach their destination. In fact, Harwood is currently closed for construction, and has been for several weeks, with no noticeable increase in congestion.

Two, we need to create a link from the Katy Trail terminus at the American Airlines Center to Downtown. I’ve been working on this for months, riding my bike from the Katy Trail to the Arts District, looking for the best link, talking with developers in the area, talking with our Park Department. It appears to me that Olive is the best route for an Uptown trail for several reasons.

First, it cuts through the middle of the Arts District, which is a very walkable/bikeable area. Second, it will cross the middle of the Woodall Rogers Park, creating a great route to a Downtown park.

Third, the land along Olive is largely undeveloped, creating an opportunity to build into those new developments a wide trail instead of teensy, tiny sidewalks. (I’ve already gotten two major properties along the route to agree to 5′ parkways with 10′ sidewalks).

Fourth, there is a new trolley route recently adopted by the City Council that will go along Olive between McKinney and Downtown, creating a nice pedestrian/alternate transportation route.

Fifth, if we create a lane of traffic dedicated to the trolley south of McKinney, we could continue that dedicated lane north of McKinney for pedestrian and bicycle use.

Overall, the Woodall Rogers Park project is expected to cost $60M, split equally between the private sector, the city, and state/federal/grants. The city’s part of the cost will be included in the proposed 2006 bond program.

In general, the Council was very supportive of the proposal, but wanted to ensure that we aggressively seek naming rights to off-set the cost of renovations. There were also concerns that we need to actively revitalize and invest in the area surrounding Fair Park.

There are two phases in the proposed plan. Most notably, the revitalization would add about 16,000 seats by creating a second ring of seating above the current Cotton Bowl. The architecture would be indistinguishable from the original Art Deco structure.

More info on Phases 1 and 2:

Phase 1 ($19 million)
Phase 1 would be funded jointly by the State Fair of Texas (which runs the Cotton Bowl) and the City of Dallas. The City currently charges the State Fair $1.2M in rent. The current proposal provides that the City would waive the rent for ten years, and the State Fair would instead put those funds into Phase 1 construction. In addition, the State Fair would match those funds and contribute an additional $1.2M/year. Phase 1 includes:

Increase seating capacity from 76,000 to 92,107
Build restrooms and concession stands to service new seating areas
Install a new scoreboard, video board, sound system, ticket gates, premium-level seating and elevators to service the upper deck
Improve the stadium facade at its end zones

Phase 2 ($26 million to $30 million)
Phase 2 would be paid for through a bond program which must be approved by voters. A bond election will likely take place in November 2006. Phase 2 includes:

Replace existing seats, which were installed in 1968, with bench-with-back seating
Install new lighting, signage, graphics and utilities
Refurbish existing stadium concourses
Add additional seating for disabled people

Read the briefing.

COGNOS is a computer program for manipulating city data, specifically 311 information. Data is not much use unless you can slice it and dice it and find patterns. COGNOS will allow us to really analyze 311 information. For example, we’ll be able to compare response times for different service requests, look at service requests by geographic area, and basically determine where the City needs to be improving. It’s going to be a very powerful tool, and will help us set goals for improvement. It will also give us concrete numbers to show residents whether the City is improving. Right now, staff is working with the Council to figure out exactly what types of reports we’ll want to run, and how to build the program.

The other agenda item was on our citywide trail system. I’m a big fan of hike and bike trails. My husband and I are out of the Katy Trail all the time, and I can’t wait for it to link up with the Old Trinity Trail.

We’ve got a master plan for our trail system, unlike most cities. We’ve also got more completed trail miles (about 85) than most cities. The goal is to triple that in a decade, which will complete our master plan. It’ll cost more than $100 million, but in addition to city money we’ll also seek grants and private funds.