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Column
Published in The Dallas Morning News, March 6, 2006
There is no more charming shopping center in Dallas than Snider Plaza, unless it's Highland Park Village. But where the Village is blessed by a small circle of enlightened owners and excellent management, Snider Plaza must stagger through life with each of its parcels held by a different proprietor. Now Albert Huddleston and his Legacy Hillcrest Investments are returning with a new proposal for the center that will be considered at the University Park Planning and Zoning Commission March 6.
There's no question that the property at the southern end of Snider Plaza needs fresh development. The Chase Bank building there now is in fatal disrepair, and the adjacent parking lot is dismal too. Neither would be a loss. There's no question either that the current plan is more imaginative than the one put forth by Mr. Huddleston five years ago. According to the minutes of the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting March 5, 2001, the "motion that the application be denied" was "unanimously approved." Hence Mr. Huddleston withdrew the project before it reached the City Council.
The primary problem was the tower which seemed too tall, too overpowering. Also, residents on Haynie did not want to face a commercial development from their front doors even though the design by Bill Booziotis had some nice articulation. While many residents were enthusiastic about the library Mr. Huddleston promised, the concerns were overwhelming.
Since then Mr. Huddleston has listened carefully to Craig Melde of Architexas, who lives nearby and was one of the strongest opponents of the first proposal. Mr. Melde's primary adaptation? Four to eight townhouses fronting on Haynie, with parking below in an underground facility. The townhouses would be 3,500 to 4.500 square feet and priced at about $800,000, according to Preston Phillips, spokesman for Legacy.
With Haynie preserved as a residential street, Mr. Melde, by then hired to do the project, set about to solve the problem of the bank-and-office-tower. Where it was to be nine stories, it now is slated for six or seven (or close to 100 feet), stair-stepping down to four or five stories from Daniel to Haynie. Beside the tower would be an open plaza, leading to a three-story structure with retailing, restaurants and the town houses.
Ideally, it seems to me, the entire development would be held to three stories. A short drive to Highland Park Village shows how felicitous an entirely low-rise setting can be. However, Legacy Hillcrest already has tower zoning for five stories, the height of the current Chase Bank, so that's where the line might reasonably be drawn, at five stories. The main thing is not to shatter the scale of the place.
Wayne Johnson, himself a developer and also a nearby resident, on Haynie, still opposes the project. He worries about the traffic. The 340,000 square feet now proposed will generate 4,300 additional cars a day, he said, citing traffic engineers. Though plans call for these cars to enter and leave on Daniel, he said they still threaten to flood the neighborhood.
Mr. Huddleston cited experts who believe that the center can absorb cars in this amount, but John DeShazo, an engineer for the opponents, said, "We have a concern that hasn't been addressed that relates to the ability of Daniel to accommodate additional traffic." Elizabeth Crowe, project manager for DeShazo Tang & Associates, stressed that "more than the five percent that is routed on Haynie in the traffic report would utilize the neighborhood and residential streets" as drivers turn west out of Snider Plaza onto Dickens then right on Haynie, spilling also onto University Boulevard.
Mr. Johnson insists that high-end condominiums would be the best use of the land and certainly that would be appealing. However, Snider Plaza also lends itself to small, superb specialty shops. The Legacy plan, negotiated somewhat to hold the tower to the existing height, could move it in this direction if the traffic situation could be resolved, perhaps by closing one or more of the streets.
It seems clear that this property is going to be developed by somebody, and Mr. Phillips pointed out that Legacy's project would "add a lot of value to the community." He noted the library the company plans to build, improvements of the intersection of Daniel and Hillcrest, the plaza, the townhouses and underground parking available to customers in Snider Plaza. Mr. Huddleston, chastened by his earlier experience, admitted that it "has sown the seeds for a better result." That still could happen, if both sides keep talking.
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