The Dallas City Council voted today (Wednesday, May 12) to give a thumbs up to plans for building two high-rise residential buildings in the heart of the gayborhood.
The plan, which would include green space and expanded parking, was introduced last November by PegasusAblon and Caven Enterprises. While Mike Ablon will be purchasing the property on both sides of Throckmorton Street in the 3900 and 4000 blocks of Cedar Springs Road from Caven Enterprises, the developer will leave intact the existing buildings facing Cedar Springs — the buildings that currently house Sue Ellen’s, JR.’s Bar & Grill, S4, the Rose Room and TMC in the 3900 block, and that house Roy G’s and Skivvies in the 4000 block. Caven will then lease the existing buildings from Ablon and continue operating the bars housed there.
Plans call for the two new buildings and a pocket park to be built on the back of the lots in those block — one behind S4 and one behind Roy G’s. The one behind S4 will be built first.
The plan has sparked controversy since it was first unveiled last November. Some area residents say the planned high-rise buildings will “change the character” of the neighborhood, calling the development “reckless” and saying it will “set precedents that will domino across Oak Lawn and surrounding neighborhoods, putting the future of Oak Lawn at risk from other poorly-planned redevelopment.”
Supporters, however, say that the PegasusAblon development will preserve the gayborhood’s history and protect it from other developers who would come in and make wholesale changes, simply demolishing the existing structures with no thought for the area’s history, its residents or the LGBTQ community — even those who don’t live there — that still calls Oak Lawn home. Change is necessary, supporters say, and the PegasusAblon development is change that keeps the community and the neighborhood in mind.
— Tammye Nash
Dallas is quickly turning to shit. It’s becoming more and more expensive too live in the area. Parking is as thing of the past and will become more expensive. Demographics are changing and it’s becoming expensive unless you have two or more incomes.
Maybe a transit line would make sense ? It could connect Love field and City Place/West Village or follow Cedar Springs to the Perot Museum.
They already have a transit line…… Its called the DART #39.
Oaklawn is long gone. The area formally known as Oaklawn is nothing more than a suburb of Frisco. Gone is the character and characters that made Oaklawn unique. In its place are sterile, overpriced cracker boxes names “apartments” and equally sterile and homogenized chain retail and restaurants. Sad!