20 things that would make Downtown Dallas better

by Joan Arbery of Renegade Bus

Caveat lector: I am not a city-planner or architect, a businesswoman or economist. But I am a student of cities. I’d like to hear reasons as to why Dallas cannot, should not, or has not, built these things listed below.

1. A mall (Boston’s Prudential Center, Chicago’s Wrigley Building, Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz Arcades, Dublin’s St. Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre, Toronto’s Eaton Centre)

Downtown malls are good lunchtime stops for office workers, and they allow tourists a place to wander in from outside. A downtown mall would also draw in people from neighborhoods close by — North Oak Cliff, West Dallas, Deep Ellum, Downtown, and Uptown, say — who have to drive to NorthPark, the Galleria, or Redbird. A mall could be built in one of the unused buildings downtown. Heck, why not turn the Dallas Grand into a mall? Underground Dallas does not cut it. Were it structured like Paris’ Arcades or Brussels’ Galeries, that’d be one thing. But as it is, it’s a subterranean vortex with none of the appeal of Rockefeller Center’s underground retail or even of Chicago’s Randolph St Station amenities.

2. A new and/or used bookstore (Fort Worth’s Barnes and Noble, New York’s Strand, Brussels’ Tropismes, Toronto’s Chapters, Paris’ Gilbert Jeune, Munich’s Marienplatz Hugendubel)

Why can’t Half Price, Barnes and Noble, Borders, or Paperbacks Plus open up a franchise downtown? Are there not readers there? As far as I can tell, there are only Christian Science Reading Rooms and other Christian libraries downtown. In this age of secular humanism, surely some non-religious bookstores would serve the public too?

3. An outdoor beer-garden (Munich’s English Garden, Paris’ Luxembourg Gardens)

Drinking outside in public spaces might still be taboo, but it can look awfully civilized when done properly (as long as it’s not Oktoberfest, of course.) People ought to be allowed to smoke there too. (Urban Market has the right idea with its hookas.) However deadly, smoking creates community, which creates conversation, which, believe it or not, makes people happy (even though they still die).

4. Kiosks (New York, Boston, Paris)

Wouldn’t it be nice to just grab your smokes, papers, candy, or snacks in a jiffy instead of having to dash into CVS and wait in a long line, with neon lights, air-conditioning, and carpeted floors? Kiosks are quick, convenient, and create community.

5. A full-blown grocery store (Dublin’s Dunnes; London’s Marks and Spencer; Rome’s Standa)

Why not turn the old Dallas High School, vacant and boarded up, into a real grocery store? Not a grocery store à la Urban Market, which caters to a niche market and makes you have your parking validated (which you’re bound to forget, and so have to pay). If Dallas High School became a grocery store, it already has a parking lot. It’s also next to the Bryan Street Dart Station. People could get their groceries or lunch on the way to and from work, and it’d be in walking distance of several hotels — the Westin, the Sheraton, the Hotel Indigo — and of some residential hi-rises, too.

6. Movie theater (Dublin’s Savoy Cinema, Fort Worth’s AMC)

If a movie theater can be at Mockingbird and at West Village, why not downtown? One would fit well over by Main Street Garden or close to the Deck Park.

7. Pedestrian-only shopping street (Dublin’s Henry and Grafton Streets)

All this needs to be is something a little larger than that alleyway next to Campisi’s and St. Jude’s Chapel connecting Main and Elm. Give people a place to stroll and shop without worrying about cars, and they’ll likely take the opportunity to use it.

8. A university (TCD in Dublin, University of London, NYU, BU, The Sorbonne)

It’s great that El Centro and UNT extension campuses are downtown. Let’s bring an extension of UT Arlington’s architecture program downtown, and perhaps host UD and SMU classes there as well? If students are going to come to Dallas to be educated, they should know Dallas by their feet.

9. Places for lovers to walk and canoodle (Rome’s Borghese Park, Paris’s Tuileries, Boston Commons, Central Park)

Maybe the Calatrava Bridge will provide a romantic vista — or turn into a thwarted lover’s suicide spot? Can you think of any romantic outdoor spot downtown?

10. Outside painters selling their wares (Paris along the Seine, Dublin along Merrion Square)

Here’s a free way to see art, and a cheap way to buy it. Don’t think people will buy oil paintings of Dealey Plaza or of Neiman’s? Maybe not. But have we tried it?

11. Outside vendors with open carts (Boston’s streets, New York’s streets, Paris’ booksellers along the Seine)

Easy for tourists, fun for locals, and good for small businesses.

12. Outdoor markets held once or twice weekly (Dublin’s Meetinghouse Square, Paris’ open-air markets)

Why relegate the farmer’s market to the Farmers Market? We could have little outdoor markets in Pegasus Plaza, City Hall Plaza, or the new Deck Park.

13. Trees lining all downtown sidewalks

Many trees line some streets downtown, but there are significant stretches that create no buffer between the pedestrian and the driving traffic.

14. Bike lines and bike racks (Much of Europe, many US cities)

Bikes are green, and they’re small and portable. Creating lanes downtown and providing spaces to lock bicycles might cut down on congestion. Bikes would also allow people more mobility to use the DART and get around downtown. Bikes might add a little logistical effort for city planners, but they allow people to connect areas of the city that foot traffic can’t do as easily.

15. Benches at all bus stops and DART stations with season-adjusted awnings

Places to sit at bus stops would assuage tired workers and commuters. As it is, standing at the bus stop looks unattractive and feels uncomfortable. Shelters that are not glass-only — an idiot idea in a city of blaring sun — could provide dark overhead shading in winter to keep in sunlight. In summer, roofs of the shelters could have reflective white coverings to repel sunlight.

16. Cultural institutions downtown (Alliance Française in Dublin)

Our Alliance Française is at the MAC — a great location. But having similar organizations downtown would make it feel more international. Why not bring the Persian Cultural Center downtown, or have the Goethe Institute there? What about the Writer’s Garret, the Dallas Institute, or the Mexico Institute? These places already have their niches in the city, but downtown could use something like them.

17. Daycares and retirement living

Seeing kids and the elderly are reminders of where we begin and end. Siphoning day cares and old people homes off to the periphery cloisters the reality of human experience. Why not have businesspeople bring their kids closer to where they work? Why not give the elderly a chance to enjoy downtown living by providing apartments that are less like infirmaries and more like real homes?

18. Consulates

It’s exciting to see other nations’ flags flapping in the wind. It links us to the world. There are consulates here from Mexico, Spain, Japan, Korea, Denmark, Sweden, Chile, and others. But there’s no Ambassador’s Row to speak of. Seeing other nations’ presence in a collective way would perhaps make foreign nationals feel more at home, and would make locals more eager to visit these nations. Like American Centers in other areas of the world, we should have more international centers here.

19. Specialty stores

Why not bring a Jimmy’s downtown, or an Asian or Middle-Eastern market, a halal butcher’s and kosher store, an imported whisky store, a French wine place? These places are all in the city, but again, you’ve got to drive to find them. As it is, the city partitions off its cultural make-up.

20. No metered or paid parking on weekends

Sundance Square has a free parking area, as do other parts of Fort Worth. Maybe it’s a pipe dream to think that non-paid parking can help the city, but you see very few people downtown on the weekends. Most metered parking is unpaid on weekends; the garages and lots remain paying. If some of these things begin developing downtown, more people will be attracted downtown. But they probably won’t want to pay to park. So maybe they’ll start using the DART or riding their bikes down those bike lanes. Or maybe they still won’t come because they don’t have the cash (living in an age of debit cards, after all) to push into those teeny slots on the peripheries of vast parking lots.

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