The city of Dallas takes a new step Thursday towards transforming the former Naval Air Station Dallas into a destination of new commercial development, offices, restaurants, stores and homes.
A 59-page presentation on the latest plan for the site known as Hensley Field will be shared with the City Plan Commission Thursday for possible future action and recommendation to the Dallas City Council.
The master plan draft shows what could bring new life to the 738-acre site along Mountain Creek Lake, south of Jefferson Boulevard, neighboring the City of Grand Prairie.
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Dallas leaders believe it is a "blank canvas" for a mixed-use development that could spur additional economic growth to the western and southern sides of the city.
“When you drive into the site, you’re like, 'Oh my goodness, you could almost build an entire new city out here on Hensley Field,'" Eric Anthony Johnson, the city's former chief of economic development, housing and neighborhood services, told NBC DFW in a 2021 interview.
Fred Allen, a resident leader of the only City of Dallas neighborhood adjacent to Hensley Field, said he is not pleased with the plans.
"City services have been an issue out here for 16 years and you’re going to add more residents out here with no guarantees of better city services," Allen said.
Since the US Navy left the site it had been leasing from the City of Dallas in 1998, it has been used mostly for storage. Some city operations are now based there.
Renderings in the Hensley Field plan show what looks like an entirely new city with tall buildings, bridges over waterways, sail boats, a beach and an automated people mover.
The plan suggests 12,000 jobs and 12,000 residents could be at the site as it develops over the next 20 years.
An example of successful waterfront development in Dallas is Cypress Waters north of I-635 between Coppell and Irving in far northwest Dallas.
That 600-acre development close to DFW Airport on smaller North Lake has attracted corporate headquarters along with new homes and restaurants.
"I'm a really big fan of development being right on the water, really close to everything. Yea, I'm a big fan of Dallas," Cypress Waters resident Carol Donnelly said. "It's a little place away from all the craziness downtown."
Arjuna Balaranjan, from New York City where waterfront development is not so unusual, was a Cypress Waters visitor Thursday.
"I've been impressed. This is a new development, right? It's still growing," he said.
Back at Hensley Field, contamination from so many years of military use has been a roadblock to re-development. The new plan says additional cleanup may happen at the same time as new construction.
Hensley Field first opened in 1928 as a U.S. Army Air Field and became Naval Air Station Dallas in the 1940s. It provided military aviation training through World War II, the Cold War and Vietnam War.
The land sits in a federal Opportunity Zone, a designation intended to boost economic development in distressed areas.
A portion of the new plan shows development immediately behind homes in the Dallas Bella Lagos neighborhood.
"I don’t want neighbors behind me. That was the primary reason why I bought my house where I bought it, because it backed up to no one," Allen said.
The collection of 200 homes in Bella Lagos have been isolated from the rest of Dallas for years. Residents and emergency vehicles must drive through Grand Prairie to get there.
Dallas City Council Members recently reversed an earlier order to allow Bella Lagos to become part of Grand Prairie instead.
City staff said Dallas would surrender to Grand Prairie $440,000 a year Bella Lagos residents are currently paying in property taxes. Staff suggested that a new fire station and other services would become closer to Bella Lagos with development of Hensley Field.
"It looks like this project is a 20 year project so we don’t even know when this thing, this fire station is going to be built," Allen said.
A dead end Grand Prairie Road that could connect Bella Lagos directly to the new Hensley Field development in not connected in the new plans.
After many years with a small temporary fire station in Cypress Waters, a large new fire station and police building is about to open there. It is about 15 years since Dallas first began promoting development of that waterfront community.
See the complete Hensley Field master plan below or click here to open it in a new window.
