Lakewood Shopping Center: Photo by Danny Fulgencio

Lakewood Shopping Center: Photo by Danny Fulgencio

How can we honor the historic Lakewood Shopping Center and simultaneously reposition it for the future? That’s the question we asked architects and urban planners to consider as they dreamed up what “could be” for the retail anchor of several old East Dallas neighborhoods. We gave them pie-in-the-sky parameters rather than real world restrictions since this is an exercise in brainstorming, not a master plan proposal. Their visions varied, but they all coalesced around the theme of making the shopping center more of a gathering place for neighbors. As one architect puts it:

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‘It’s a commercial success.
It needs to be
a community success.’

The legendary Doc Harrell opened his drugstore at the southwest corner of Abrams and Gaston in 1924, when Abrams was still a dirt road. The following year, investor Leo Corrigan partnered with developers Dines and Kraft to buy part of Lakewood Country Club’s property and build a shopping village on the former 18th hole, to the chagrin of nearby residents who preferred their pastoral setting.

Thus the Lakewood Shopping Center, as we call it today, was born. The old Lakewood library, now the Diener-Mills building on La Vista and old Abrams, operated as an ice cream parlor before the city bought it in 1937. The Lakewood Theater opened in 1938 followed by the erstwhile Lakewood Hotel across the street. Corrigan leased space to grocery stores at both ends of the property, and over time all the spaces in between filled with retail and service shops. The neighborhood grew up around it.

Tenants have come and gone, buildings have been renovated, remodeled and replaced. Urban decay hit, followed by urban renewal. Nine decades have passed, yet Lakewood’s shopping village still stands. A scant few of the original tenants remain, but new life fills the shells of some historic buildings — a winery in an old post office, an orthodontist and boutique in an old library, a title company in the fire-ravaged remains of Doc Harrell’s drugstore.

“This is our inheritance from our Dallas ancestors. They gifted these to us,” says Brandon Castillo, president of the Dallas Homeowners League.

He’s referring to both Lakewood Shopping Center and other pre-World War II retail districts such as Bishop Arts, Deep Ellum and Lowest Greenville, which were “built when cars were not our main source of transportation,” Castillo says. These older retail centers are more expensive to maintain, but they produce more, he says.

Castillo is part owner of an economic development firm, Ash+Lime, that focuses on neighborhood improvements. When he crunched the numbers, he found that the Lakewood Shopping Center annually produces almost $200,000 tax dollars per acre — the highest yield of these traditional commercial centers.

This is the kind of information that convinces Castillo of Dallas’ need to “build smaller.” We don’t need to wipe out entire areas to construct shiny developments, he argues; instead, “we need to look for the quick wins and the good investments.”

Castillo is among the new wave of urban planners and city builders who are bolstering their ideals with data. Also in this cohort is Patrick Kennedy, board chairman of North Texas’ Congress for the New Urbanism, who advocates that Dallas’ infrastructure should improve life for its residents rather than simply move cars through the city. Streets and rights-of-way are a “public resource,” Kennedy argued at the recent Dallas Homeowners League boot camp, asking “How do you rebuild them for the neighborhoods right next to them?”

Lowest Greenville and the Bishop Arts District are the flavors of the week. Their ascent as Dallas hot spots were aided by roughly $1.5 million each, in city funds that made streets friendlier to pedestrians and cyclists, plus “code relaxation” that kept parking lots to a minimum. Their success, though, is also their source of strife.

“Because they’re so rare and so successful, they’re drawing from the region,” Kennedy says. “We need 30 of these all around the city.”

Nobody wants to be the new Lowest Greenville with its traffic and parking congestion, Castillo points out. He echoes Kennedy’s sentiment that we need to create neighborhood rather than regional destinations, and Lakewood Shopping Center is fertile ground.

In a sense, this could be deemed a futile exercise. Castillo’s own numbers show that Lakewood already is wildly successful. Other areas of East Dallas clearly could use more help.

Councilman Mark Clayton, who represents Lakewood, noted shortly after he was elected that his focus will be revitalizing blighted areas such as Casa View in Far East Dallas. If the city invests in Lakewood, “what’s the economic benefit?” he asks. “If the city puts in a dollar, what does it get back?”

It’s a fair question. The data from Castillo and others, however, seems to support their view that Dallas should prioritize small investments in existing infrastructure rather than big investments in new development.

If the city does this, Castillo says, “we can stitch together neighborhoods once again and satisfy market demand for great places while providing a development model that creates more value for the city and wealth for the community.”

The Lakewood Shopping Center is at a crossroads. Over the decades, portions of the main section around the Gaston, Abrams and La Vista triangle were sold off and now have four separate owners. Much of that ownership turned over within the past decade, and neighbors watched as longtime local favorites — The Fan Shop, Lakewood Ace Hardware, Matt’s — disappeared from the landscape. Restaurants and bars now dominate the scene, and parking at the center is scarce on weekends and even some weeknights.

The parking problems may only escalate; owners of the historic but vacant Lakewood Theater continue to convey the likelihood that the space will be carved up into more retail and restaurant spots — no additional parking necessary, thanks to city regulations that were grandfathered in the ’70s.

Change continues to loom, and how neighbors feel about that depends on their various perspectives. As longtime neighbor and historic preservationist Norman Alston likes to say, “There’s one thing you can count on at an East Dallas gathering: Everyone in the room knows they have the answer, and none of the answers are the same.”

Perhaps if there is one thing we can all agree on, it’s this: Change shouldn’t just line developers’ pockets and fill the city’s coffers; it also should improve quality of life for residents. Increases in property value and more retail options could be construed as beneficial, yes, but is that the best we can hope for?

That’s the question we posed to neighborhood architects and urban planners. Instead of reacting to the inevitable zoning change here and parking proposal there, what if we could latch onto a bigger vision of what Lakewood Shopping Center could be?

We may never fully agree on the vision, but we should at least have the conversation.