Chalk Hill Trail (Photo by Danny Fulgencio)
If 2017 wasn’t unsettling enough, consider that this was the first summer in decades that Aunt Stelle’s sno-cone shop was closed.
Then Bolsa Mercado closed its West Davis storefront. Now where will Oak Cliffers start the revolution? At the new millennial-pink coffee shop?
Everything feels a little off around here.
Like the corner of Zang and Davis. It’s barely recognizable from a year ago, with high-rise apartments going up on three corners and CVS taking the fourth.
Fret not, however, because it looks like Oak Cliff could get a Central Market eventually, after the San Antonio-based grocer bought a corner next to all that new stuff.
One developer has a plan to pour millions of dollars into the Wynnewood Village Shopping Center. And Lincoln Property Co. opened their apartments at the old Colorado Place, with an adjacent retail development now under construction.
Townhomes are coming too: In the Bishop Arts neighborhood, on Fort Worth Avenue and on Tyler.
Even as some landmarks are torn down or threatened with demolition, our neighborhood is making strides for historic preservation. Arts Mission Oak Cliff transformed a vacant church into a for-profit cultural center. Tyler Station is incubating startups. Developers are reusing two historic buildings on Zang: The Mayor’s House and the Trinity Presbyterian Church. And an apartment developer bought the block of mid-20th Century apartments on Eighth between Llewellyn and Adams with no plans to tear them down.
The Oak Cliff Country Club could be redeveloped with new homes. But the new Trinity Forest Golf Club brings the Byron Nelson Tournament back to Dallas this coming May.
Residential real estate values have doubled or better in the past five years or so. It was revealed this year that the 75224 zip code, which includes Elmwood and Kiest Park, had the most house-flippers in North Texas in 2016.
Hundreds of new apartments will open in Oak Cliff in 2018. The construction on Beckley is almost finished. The Kessler Steps are being rebuilt. And construction could begin on the Chalk Hill Trail.
Coming down the pike: A roundabout on Tyler Street, the Interstate 35 deck park and a new aquatics center at Kidd Springs Park.
It will feel a little different, but it will still be Oak Cliff.
