Innovations aim to lure residents to downtown

Dallas: Forgivable loans for buyers, grants for developers on the table

05:19 AM CDT on Tuesday, October 17, 2006

By DAVE LEVINTHAL / The Dallas Morning News

Hoping to lure thousands more residents to downtown, Dallas city officials have begun crafting two incentive programs to that end that are unprecedented locally.

One, targeting prospective condominium buyers, would use a cocktail of public funding sources to offer forgivable loans of up to $40,000 to people earning less than the nation's median family income.

As conceived, qualifying individuals could use the loan toward purchasing downtown residences, many of which have become prohibitively expensive for lower- and middle-income Dallasites. If, however, a loan grantee sells his or her property within 10 years of purchasing it, the recipient would have to repay it in full.

"The idea is to fill the gap between sales price and the mortgage you can afford," said Jerry Killingsworth, director of Dallas' Housing Department.

Downtown developers are required to provide "affordable" units within apartment projects, but many choose to pay the city a fee to skirt the regulation. City officials say they hope to use these payments to help fund the loan program.

Several Dallas City Council members say they like the concept, which would address the city's desire to create 10,000 mixed-income housing units downtown but would avoid government "rent control" policies used by cities like New York.

"It is a new idea. You have to test it and see how it works in the marketplace," Office of Economic Development Director Karl Zavitkovsky said.

Dallas' second incentive plan aims to offer downtown housing developers as yet unspecified tax incentives if they agree to build two downtown projects at once – one on downtown's fringes and another within more developed sections. Developers agreeing to do so would be eligible to receive a public grant on the more remote building, according to city staff's preliminary plan.

The plan is an end-around a situation that has limited City Hall's ability to provide incentives for downtown development projects.

This year, Dallas agreed to stop offering property tax abatements and tax increment funding within a large swath of prime downtown real estate in the Downtown Connection Tax Increment Financing District. Developers working in the district potentially can recoup some property taxes to fund building demolition, environmental remediation, infrastructure improvements and the like.

The city did so in order to appease financiers of Main Street's Mercantile Bank complex redevelopment project, which includes nine downtown buildings slated for renovation into housing. The project is set to receive about $70 million in public incentives, the majority of which is funded by public revenue bonds.

Council member Mitchell Rasansky suggested also providing companies that choose to relocate downtown with cash for each employee who chooses to live within the center city.

City staff plans to brief the council with detailed versions of both plans later this year.

Dallas landmark bites the dust

12:23 PM CDT on Saturday, September 30, 2006

By AARON CHIMBEL / WFAA.com Mobile Journalist

Standing on what was the foundation of Baby Doe's Matchless Mine, Roy White, Jr. remembers the night he took his wife there for a surprise dinner.

The lifelong Dallas resident made just one trip to the restaurant that sat atop Goat Hill for more than 30 years, but he says it had a special place in Dallas. "It’s a landmark and it’s a very unique location and the intimacy of it when it was here," said White, who was there working for Dallas Water Utilities.

This week, Baby Doe's was bulldozed. It had been closed for more than a year. The owners of the five-acre property at the intersection of Interstate 35E and the Dallas North Tollway, Cienda Partners, bought out the remaining 25 years on the restaurant's lease and decided the site would be easier to sell if the boarded-up and graffiti-laced wooden building was gone.

"It was not a hard decision," said Cienda’s Phil Wise. "The site is five acres and has been under-utilized for years."

David Glasscock, an executive vice president at Colliers International, was hired to market the property, He said the restaurant had outlived it economic use. The land was simply too valuable to be home to just one restaurant.

"It's the most prominent site in the city," he said.

Cienda bought Goat Hill, the slice of raised land wedged between Harry Hines Boulevard and Interstate 35E and Oak Lawn and Victory Park, two years ago with the intention to sell it to developers. Wise said they have already received offers, and the site will probably be a mixed-use high rise with a hotel, condos, offices, shopping and restaurants all possibilities.

Both Wise and Glasscock said the proximity to downtown, uptown, Victory Park, Oak Lawn, The Katy Trail, American Airlines Center and several local highways—in addition to the elevated terrain—make Goat Hill attractive to developers.

Wise said just because the property is for sale, it doesn’t mean they will take any offer. "We’ve owned it for two years, and would be happy to own it for 25," he said.

But Glasscock is still pushing the property, and said it would take at least two years to complete any new development. He predicts that whatever materializes on Goat Hill will have the iconic status Baby Doe's did.

"Whatever is there will be a landmark," he said.