For more than a year, a grassroots organization known as the Ferguson Road Initiative (FRI) has been working to build a recreation center in Far East Dallas at Ferguson and Highland roads at the northern tip of the future Trinity Forest Spine Trail.
The feasibility study/master plan for the White Rock Hills Recreation Center is complete, which is a vital step toward making the center a reality, and a couple weeks ago the group presented the plan to the community. Check out the above site plan and sketches for the potential building.
The new center will have a community garden/urban farm element. For a while FRI was entertaining the idea of a partnership with the Dallas Arboretum for that section, but FRI says that won’t be happening. They are in talks with another organization now, but they don’t want to reveal who it is until everything is settled.
The entire project will cost about $50 million. Some of that will be raised through private donation, and some of it will be city bond money. Construction on the rec center likely won’t happen until 2020.
FRI began more than a decade ago with the mission to “transform Far East Dallas into a safe, beautiful, prosperous and proud community” through economic revitalization. It covers the stretch of land from Garland Road to Mesquite from Interstate-30 to I-635, including parts of Forest Hills, Casa Linda, Casa View, White Rock Hills and White Rock East.
We’ve been following FRI’s progress. Read our story from last November. They also spearheaded the effort to build the White Rock Hills Branch Library on Ferguson near Buckner in 2012.
