Rendering of the proposed deck park across from the entrance to the Dallas Zoo
A meeting on the proposed deck park over I-35E across from the Dallas Zoo will be held tonight (Tuesday, Sept. 20) at Hitt Auditorium inside Methodist Hospital, 1441 N. Beckley Ave. Parking is free and the free trolley that stops outside the hospital will be running.
According to the Old Oak Cliff Conservation League, “Dallas Park and Recreation invites the public to attend the second programming and visioning workshop on the proposed Southern Gateway Deck Park. Conceptual design alternatives will be presented for community input.”
Rather than giving an out-of-town developer all sorts of incentives to build a monstrosity of an apartment complex that will destroy Bishop Arts that some city leaders want to build, the deck park will enhance the neighborhood, link the zoo with Oak Cliff (it’s across the highway from Oak Cliff) and give the area a park that will enhance the quality of life.
If you’ve been to Bishop Arts lately and spoken to any of the store or restaurant owners, you’ll get an earful about how tearing down old buildings to make way for a six-story Oak Lawn-style apartment complex will destroy the neighborhood — just as those developments are destroying Oak Lawn. And wonder why the new trolley doesn’t actually go to Bishop Arts? It was a concession to the developer to stop at his (proposed) front door. If you take the trolley to Bishop Arts, it stops on Beckley Avenue, two blocks down a steep hill from the actual Bishop Arts District.
The meeting is open to anyone interested in building what people in Oak Cliff want rather than what a few people at City Hall want.