Access for Mockingbird Station could upgrade
Dallas: SMU, business, UP uniting
06:38 AM CST on Thursday, February 2, 2006
By KRISTEN HOLLAND / The Dallas Morning News
In the near future, SMU students may be able to cross Central Expressway without stepping foot on Mockingbird Lane or Yale/SMU Boulevard.
A walkway connecting Southern Methodist University to Mockingbird Station is part of a proposal aimed at increasing rail use and redeveloping more than 20 acres northeast of the mixed-use development.
The area is already home to an eclectic group of uses.
Occupants range from restaurants and bars to office buildings and a municipal service center. A vacant movie theater, several dilapidated parking lots and an empty lumberyard also dot the landscape.
The proposal includes urban townhouses and a four-story, mixed-use development with retail and multifamily buildings. Additional landscaping and a second multifamily development are also envisioned, according to a grant request submitted recently to the North Central Texas Council of Governments.
Southern Methodist University, University Park and Prescott Realty Group submitted the proposal as part of a $6.5 million request to improve pedestrian access to the Dallas Area Rapid Transit light rail station and enhance the area's landscaping.
"It's an 80-20 match, which means that Prescott and the university would have to find the 20 percent if we're lucky enough to get the grant," said Leon Bennett, SMU's vice president for legal affairs and governmental relations. Twenty percent amounts to about $1.3 million.
University Park's city manager, Bob Livingston, said the city has no financial incentive in the deal. Tax revenues generated from improvements will go to Dallas because that's where the proposed redevelopment is located.
City leaders agreed to sponsor the application in part because SMU needed a public partner. "One of the reasons the city is here is because of the university," Mr. Livingston said.
In addition, University Park's auxiliary service center is within the proposal's boundaries, at 4419 Worcola St.
"We have about 150 people that go to work over there every day," Mr. Livingston said. "Anything that can be done to improve our pedestrian access to and from the DART rail station is something to want to try."
Though some may see SMU's push to redevelop the land as a ploy to strengthen its standing as a finalist for the George W. Bush presidential library, university representatives say that's not the case.
"This has to do with our interest in the properties that we've acquired across [U.S. Highway] 75," Mr. Bennett said.
Mr. Bennett said the university owns the vacant movie theater, Jack's Pub and Expressway Towers on the east side of Central Expressway. "We have under contract two other properties," he added.
Jud Pankey, Prescott's president, didn't return phone calls about the project his company is heading up with SMU.
The University Park-SMU-Prescott Realty Group trio isn't the only partnership vying for grant money to redevelop property around Mockingbird Station. Prescott and SMU submitted a similar application with the city of Dallas as its public sponsor.
And Dallas apartment builder First Worthing Corp. submitted a request for $5 million to build a 10.3-acre mixed-use development on parking lots next to the DART station. That plan involves leasing 6.3 acres from DART to build a central public plaza along with retail and residential buildings.
Alicia Hopkins, a senior transportation planner for the council of governments, said the competition for the $40 million available for sustainable development projects is much stiffer than in 2001, the last time the group had grant money for similar projects.
In 2001, the group used its $40 million to fund 21 of the 54 projects that requested funding. "This time, we have 136 applications for a total of $273 million," she said.
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