Dal-Mac Investments recently announced it will demolish the Dr Pepper building at Central and Mockingbird and construct a strip shopping center.
The development corporation is negotiating with several tenants – Barnes & Noble, Marshal’s, The Gap and The Container Store – to move into the spot. David Cunningham with Dal-Mac says to attract tenants, Dal-Mac must start from scratch with a structure that works for potential businesses. The building’s ceiling height and general layout make it difficult for businesses to use the structure.
“They will not go into the building,” Cunningham says. “The more they studied it, the more they saw it wasn’t feasible.”
Cunningham says since the company bought the property 17 months ago, Dal-Mac has exhausted every option to keep the building intact.
“There’s a lot of good ideas, it’s just that no one wants to go in there,” Cunningham says.
Construction of the center will start at the beginning of the new year. The clock tower and stone entryway will be left intact. The plans for the new center will use a similar architectural style to the present building.
“We want to maintain some of the historical significance,” Cunningham says.
But before the demolition can go through, the company must get the City to approve a hardship relief, which would lift the demolition moratorium on the property and allow Dal-Mac to go on with its plans. The company must show the City that it faces an economic hardship with the present property and can’t develop it unless it is demolished.
The report of the demolition was not a surprise, but it was a disappointment to neighborhood residents and historical preservationists.
“Dal-Mac has seemed to not be sensitive to community needs,” says Catherine Horsey, director of Preservation Dallas. “They view it as it’s private property and community input shouldn’t matter.
But Cunningham says Dal-Mac has been sensitive to community needs.
They’re being a bit ingenuous,” Cunningham says. “Name me another developer who would spend 17 months and thousands of dollars to try to compromise.”
Representatives from historical preservation groups, surrounding neighborhoods, the City government, DART, Kroger and Dal-Mac met for several months to discuss on the property’s development and use. One of the neighborhoods’ and preservationists’ goals was to keep the historical building intact.
“Dallas has a reputation of just pouring concrete,” says Bobbi Bilnoski with the Greenland Hills Neighborhood Association. Bilnoski served on the compromise coalition.
To save the building, opponents to the demolition plan to pack City Hall Nov. 1 for a Landmark Commission hearing on the hardship relief. From the commission meeting, it will go to City Council for final approval.
Opponents of the demolition intend to show that it is economically feasible and there are businesses interested in utilizing the building the way it is.
The building is also being considered by the commission to be declared a historic landmark. But, Horsey says even if the building receives landmark designation, it can still be demolished.
Horsey’s organization and other historical groups are involved in a lawsuit against the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation over sale of the building. The lawsuit challenges that the FDIC violated federal regulations when it sold the property to Dal-Mac.
The case is on appeal, and the groups are waiting to find out if the Supreme Court will review the case. But even if the case is heard by the Supreme Court, in the meantime the property can be demolished if the moratorium is lifted.
“There is no win,” Bilnoski says. “The only win for the community is for someone to step in with money and a use.”
