The Dallas City Plan Commission last week denied a requested zoning change for a Sprouts Farmers Market grocery store on Fort Worth Avenue.
Vista Property Co., which requested the change on behalf of its tenant Sprouts, can resubmit a zoning-change application. But their request was denied because, members of the plan commission said, the companies were not responsive to their requests to stick to urban form at the corner of Fort Worth Avenue and Hampton Road.
Vista repeatedly told the commission that building a grocery store to the sidewalk, instead of placing it at the back of the property with parking lot in front, is not feasible because of the change in elevation from west to east.
“The site has physical constraints that would not allow the grocery store site plan to meet the zoning criteria which is why we requested a variance,” says Colton Wright of Vista Property Co.
“It is physically not possible to meet the zoning requirements regarding pushing the grocery store to the front and still have a functioning site, which we had explained multiple times and seemed to fall on deaf ears.”
The zoning-change request for this property has been in the works for over a year. Members of the Dallas Urban Design Peer Review Panel said in January that the plan didn’t come close enough to the zoning rules that neighbors set for Fort Worth Avenue and West Commerce in 2005.
That’s when City Council approved Planned Development District 714, known as the West Commerce Street/Fort Worth Avenue Special Purpose District, or commonly, PD 714.
“It would be tragic to lose this important site to suburban form,” plan commission member Deborah Carpenter said during a hearing on the matter last week.
That site, now occupied by Elrod’s Cost Plus and a Chinese buffet that used to be a Luby’s, has a view of the Dallas skyline and could be developed as a mix of retail, office and residential up to four stories high, according to the existing zoning.
Carpenter, who spent two years helping to write PD 714, noted that all of the new development west of Hampton has conformed to the zoning.
“We worked really hard with Aldi,” she said. But that retailer eventually agreed to move its entrance to face the street.
Since demolition of the buildings is planned, it is a case that should “trigger” PD 714, meaning its rules ought to be followed, Carpenter said.
Sprouts had planned a 23,000-square-foot store, one of its new prototypes that has less storage and more floor space. The original request would’ve allowed a grocery store angled on the corner with a drive-thru restaurant.
The property owner had acquiesced to creating a shaded pedestrian path all the way through the property and leading to the entrance. The plan also called for bioswales between parking rows.
Commission member Amanda Popken said she worked with neighbors and the property owners, and City of Dallas staff has recommended approval of the zoning change.
The property company worked with neighbors for nine months, “and all sides had agreed on this plan,” Wright says. He added that the company is “very disappointed.”
“We had put forth our best efforts in a plan that satisfied almost everyone except for certain commissioners whose district this is not in,” he says.
But the commission didn’t agree to a compromise.
“This is not urban form at all,” Carpenter said.
The commission voted down Popken’s motion to approve the zoning change. After that failed, she called for a vote to deny the request without prejudice.
“This site is such a gem,” she said. “I’m proud of Dallas for standing up” for its own standards.
