Market Center Boulevard has become a parking lot and storage area for apartment construction. (David Taffet/Dallas Voice)
I’m for development just like the next person. Change is good.
Look at the beautiful new Verizon parking lot on the corner of Lemmon and Oak Lawn avenues. Replaced the Avon Aprtments that stood there for 80 years. It was really in the way.
Look at all the beautiful new Public Storage facilities popping up all over Oak Lawn. With the tiny new apartments that are crowding Oak Lawn, you’ve gotta have some place to put your stuff.
And all the beautiful, uniform apartment complexes that are replacing ancient eyesores that were 30, maybe 40 years old. All of them look identical. Who needs an architect when you can just build the exact same thing that’s across the street.
Like I said, I’m all for development, especially the innovative development going on in Oak Lawn.
While I’m all for development, I was just wondering if some of this is legal. Right across Turtle Creek from our office on Market Center Boulevard in the Design District, a new apartment complex is going up. First they tore down the trees that were holding up berm stopping the erosion into Turtle Creek, and then they poured foundations that seem to encroach on city property — or at least are farther over into the grassy slope. I caught them today shoring up some of that erosion.
I’m sure they’re only building on their property, because there was surveying done and and the city would never let the building extend onto city property. Right? Well, that’s between the city and the property owner.
Here’s my complaint about that project and every other one going on in Oak Lawn and the Design District:
For months, the construction company has closed two lanes of Market Center Boulevard. I’m not talking about closing those lanes when cement trucks are lined up to pour the foundation into the unstable soil that lines Turtle Creek.
I’m not talking about when tricks are lined up delivering windows or sheet rock. I’m talking permanently. Their dumpster sits in the middle of our street. They use our street to stack deliveries. And they even use the street to take a mid-day nap.
Are they paying the city to rent those lanes for the year of construction?
I’m not complaining about this one project. This is going on all over the area. My two-mile trip to the office that used to take seven minutes can take up to 20 minutes now because of the congestion caused by the construction that won’t stay on its own property and begins during morning rush hour and continues through evening rush hour.
I’m all for development, but I’d like to know: Is it legal for this construction to take up public streets permanently for months or years? And if so, how can we change some of those ordinances.
