City of Dallas

Home sweet home!!  We were honored to have a panel of City officials beginning with Paul Dyer, Mayor Leppert, Theresa O'Donnell, David Whitley, and Karl Zavitkovsky.

Paul talked about the parks department and some of the current projects underway including the Belo Development and the Deck Park over Woodall Rogers.

He discussed the use of eminent domain and condemnation.  He also told us of  how he gets some of the deal done when assembling the land and its through a third party Trust for public Land whereby they do simultaneous closings with the land owner and then with the City.  He also advocated for a Parks master plan to the tune of $400,000 and he says it was some of the best money spent and they still follow the plan today.

Mayor Leppert joined us for  few minutes in between meetings.  While I did not know these facts but he stated Dallas is 400 square miles and a population of 1.4 million people.  He talked about the need for a stronger commercial tax base, the $350 million arts district and a $100 million coming on in a month or so, the City is a leader in sustainability  - 40% wind power energy consumer, largest alternative fuel fleet, and all future buildings will be green buildings.  In Oak Cliff he doubled the demolition docket and has a vacant building initiative to get owners to step up of get out.  He touched on many other subjects as well including TIF's that have not been as successful as planned.  Mayor Leppert was kind enough to do a photo shoot with us in Council Chambers.

Theresa O'Donnell discussed the role of Sustainable Development and Construction and Stated housing development was the driver for the Dallas economy however it would not be able to sustain that on a go forward basis.  Two years ago she had 3500 new housing starts, today she has 700.  She discussed the Forward Dallas Master Plan.  We got into a discussion about the homeless in Dallas vs. the homeless in surrounding areas and the extensive burden it has on the City.  She stated Re-development is their focus and most developments were PD's.

David and Paul then joined us.  David talked about the City's Urban Design initiatives and that they were busy setting Urban Policy.  He then discussed the westward development over the Trinity River.  there is 80 acres of land that has been assembled with Phil Romano as one of its investors.  It was made a TIF district in 2007 and since then they have been working with the community to do right by everyone.  The 4 themes that surfaced for the area were preservation of the community, more services, regional draw, and strategy for active use.  Paul talked about many developments in the City but what was interesting to me was how creative the financing of some of these deal are and that financing is the major issue these days.  He said HUD is the only game in town and they have a program HUD 108 that basically takes a 2nd mtg. as part of the stack and the city chips in, and new market tax credits which serves as part of the equity in the deal.  Crazy stuff but it is getting done.  He also talk about the EB 5 program whereby a foreigner can buy a green card for 500,000 investment.  It's obviously more than that but in general if you can generate jobs you can come to the states and get a green card. This is just another example of creative financing.

Great day all in all.  Thank you so much Mayor Leppert and to all your staff for participating. 

J2M.