The Dallas developer facing a Thursday deadline to begin the final demolition of what remains of the old Valley View Mall says he is ahead of schedule.
Much of the former mall on I-635 LBJ Freeway at Preston Road is already demolished. Dallas city leaders and the developer blame each other for delays at the site. Demolition is not their only dispute.
“It’s a waste of our hopes and dreams and it makes me sad. So, I just want to focus on the vision and get this moving,” said Jaynie Schultz, the neighborhood’s Dallas City Council Member.
Schultz said her father worked at Sanger-Harris when that store occupied the space that later became Macy’s. She grew up in the neighborhood and visited Valley View often.
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“It was always such a joy for us to come here to the mall. The food court was such a big deal. It was an amazing place,” she said.
Now, the mostly demolished building is an eyesore, she said. She blames the main developer planning a new project there for delays.
“We respected their rights for a long time and now it's time to respect the rights of the people who live here and bring down this property, make it ready for development,” Schultz said.
In April 2019 demolition began on a large portion of the old mall. Developer Scott Beck said it was a signal of finally moving forward on the project he calls ‘Dallas Midtown.’
Beck said an AMC theater had a lease to operate in a remaining portion of the building well after that demolition started. COVID-19 hit soon afterward though the pandemic was not the main cause of the delay, Beck said. He blames the City of Dallas for stalling a large sanitary sewer line that was finished just 5 weeks ago. The line was necessary to serve a dense new development.
“The main message here is that by the city’s delinquency in allowing the sanitary sewer to be put in, we were unable to start. Now that that has happened, as of five weeks ago, the project can actually begin,” Beck said. “From a deadline perspective, I think it’s disingenuous that the city is pushing this issue. We waited for them.”
Beck said asbestos abatement had been underway inside the remaining structure for months, well ahead of the Dec. 1 deadline. He said the asbestos removal may continue into early 2023 and demolition of the final structure would happen soon after that.
Shultz said there is a Jan. 1 deadline to start that remaining heavy demolition.
The city is going to be on top of it every day making sure that they fulfill that promise, she said. The council member said the city cooperated with Beck all along, but refused his request to pay for the sewer line.
“It is not the responsibility of taxpayers to pay for a developer’s needs,” she said. “Everything else was left for them to do it and they have not done anything.”
Beck said the vision he has worked on for ten years of a dense urban development with parks and people is still in place for the prime site in the middle of North Dallas, despite delays.
“We still have this opportunity to attract large scale businesses to the area. Going into recession it certainly is more difficult, but this is not a one or two year project. This is a multi-decade project,” Beck said.
Schultz said the city’s vision has expanded over the years for the entire North Dallas area that includes the former Valley View Mall and the still thriving Dallas Galleria Mall.
In between the two, the Dallas Independent School District recently purchased an office building to become a technology magnet high school.
An automated people mover has been proposed to move through the area and connect with DART's planned Silver Line rail between Plano and DFW Airport.
Schultz said city leaders have re-branded the diverse area as ‘The Dallas International District.’
“We want to celebrate those cultures, bring together those businesses from all around the world, build an eco-system for everybody who’s come from all around the world to be here,” she said.
Beck said he is sticking with the original name for his project.
“We don’t subscribe to the Dallas International District. We believe it’s Dallas Midtown,” he said.
As years went by, Beck said his firm has acquired the former Macy’s portion of the Valley View Mall site, which had separate ownership. He said owners of the Sears portion have filed for bankruptcy.
“The last man standing relating to the Valley View project is us. We’ve been at it for ten years now. We anticipate being at it for another ten to twenty years as this thing is built out,” Beck said.
Regardless of what they call it and their disputes, the developer and city council member are united in their current claim of desire to see progress at the former mall site, and to see soon.
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