A large mixed-use development on Dallas Riverfront Boulevard is underway as a long-planned link between Downtown Dallas and the Trinity River.
It comes 14 years after Industrial Boulevard was renamed Riverfront to help encourage new development and gain a connection with the planned Trinity River Park.
The park, first approved by Dallas voters in 1998, has not happened yet. But the development is finally occurring with a former Dallas Cowboys player helping to make the project happen.
Currently, workers are busy at 505 North Riverfront, a former industrial site that sat vacant for years near Continental Avenue.
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“Here we are, we're finally seeing dirt turning," City Councilman Omar Narvaez said. "This is going to be a big game changer for the entire city of Dallas."
Years ago, the city invested in new sidewalks, new street pavement and a new street name to help transform Riverfront Boulevard.
But a park between the levees has been delayed by the US Army Corp of Engineers which controls the floodway. Levee work is currently underway to improve flood protection. Some trails have been built through the floodway but a park is still not approved.
Meanwhile, across the river in West Dallas, the Trinity Groves development moved ahead, beside the Ron Kirk Pedestrian Bridge, the former Continental Viaduct, which was opened as a recreation attraction.
The 505 Riverfront site is close to the eastern side of the Kirk Bridge and now work is underway there.
“This development is going to be huge for us. It's going to have affordable housing, it's going to have fair market housing, it will have retail,” Narvaez said.
DALLAS DEVELOPMENT
There are many reasons it took so long but Narvaez said the biggest one was the challenge of building something so large and so close to the Trinity River Levee.
“The levees are the most important thing we have, right? In order to build there, it took the structural engineers a lot of work and that became a huge expense,” Narvaez said. “Everything has to be checked in order to make sure the safety of these levees is the number one priority and is protected for everyone.”
The Chief Executive Officer of Columbus Realty, the company that’s building the project is former Dallas Cowboys Center, Robert Shaw.
He and former quarterback Roger Staubach were partners in Trinity Groves apartment construction that started in 2014.
Shaw’s firm is the third development group to take on the Riverfront project and they are getting it done.
The City of Dallas has been involved in past planning for the site.
Narvaez said the second phase of the project will involve a direct connection to the future park.
“In the end we got the right development. It's just going to be exciting for folks once this all gets done and when we get to the other side with the park, it's going to be even more exciting,” he said.
Robert Shaw was unavailable for comment Tuesday but people with his company said they too are excited about the project.
