What the Andres brothers are trying to do with the old Carnival on Henderson near Ross seems like the type of thing neighbors would embrace, but judging from reading Dallas Observer writer Jim Schutze’s roundup of the other night’s get-to-know-you-and-our-zoning-request meeting about the deal, there’s more going on here than meets the eye. Following Schutze’s comments, you can read a pretty interesting blog thread that says a lot about the future of portions of our neighborhood and the difficulties developers face in even bringing forward new ideas.
There are always going to be people with the "not in my backyard" philosophy, but the truth of the matter is that the area off Ross near Henderson isn’t really intended to be a backyard — for better or worse, it’s primarily retail- and bar-oriented entertainment area. Maybe it didn’t start out that way, but that’s what’s there now. So what the Andres brothers are proposing to do — sink many millions of dollars into a building that is empty right now and make it a home for primarily neighborhood-oriented businesses, restaurants and hot-spots — makes a lot of sense to me. True, I do not live next to the building or even that nearby, but again, it’s not primarily a residential neighborhood anymore. And based on how Henderson Avenue is redeveloping right now, far better that it should be some people with existing neighborhood investments like the Andres family tackling this big job than waiting around and hoping that some developer just visiting from Atlanta hits a home run in the area by accident.
