Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson announced on Tuesday that Garrett Boone, the co-founder of The Container Store and noted philanthropist, will serve as the City’s first “greening czar.”
This title comes with the responsibility of leading efforts to transform vacant land into community greenspaces.
Gathering in a cul-de-sac next to a City-owned vacant plot of land on April 25, Mayor Johnson, Boone, and community stakeholders laid out their vision for increasing park density in Dallas to ensure that all citizens will live within a 10-minute walk of one.
“As we all know, Dallas loves its parks, and we’ve actually become a national model for excellence in developing innovative green spaces,” the mayor said at the press conference attended by The Dallas Express. “We continue to improve our parks and programming for our families throughout our city.”
“I emphasize often that I believe parks are to be considered critical infrastructure in a modern city,” Johnson added. “It is a fact that still today, more than a quarter of Dallasites do not live within a 10-minute walk of a park, and that’s why I’ve made it my goal to ensure that all Dallas residents have access to parks, trails, and other green spaces.”
In November, Johnson requested that City Manager T.C. Broadnax compile a list of vacant or underused city-owned land to consider which could be viable candidates for park conversion.
“We need someone to help us lead these efforts,” Johnson explained, “so I am very proud to announce that I have asked Garrett Boone, and he has agreed to serve as our city’s first-ever greening czar.”
“Garrett Boone is the perfect fit for this appointment, if I do say so myself, since I made it,” the mayor quipped. “He’s a successful entrepreneur. He’s an environmentalist, he’s a conservationist, and he’s a philanthropist. He is perhaps most widely known as the co-founder and former co-CEO of a multi-billion dollar company that you may have heard of called The Container Store.”
He added, “I respect Garrett Boone immensely, and I trust that he will bring the right stakeholders to the table to determine the highest and best uses of available parcels of city-owned land in Dallas.”
After emphasizing Boone’s impressive community service record and background, Johnson invited the new greening czar to share his vision for the program.
Thanking the mayor, Boone said, “I took this position because you’ve proven that you truly are a champion for green spaces. The cause is meaningful to me because conservation efforts, creating green spaces, and supporting new parks have been a major focus of my life since I retired from The Container Store and a major focus of our family foundation since that retirement.”
“I think I have the experience to achieve meaningful results,” he continued, “but I’m also remembering the admonition of Kermit the Frog, that being green is not easy.”
“We’ll start by reviewing the inventory of vacant unused and underused City land that Mayor Johnson requested … and we can actually take the study that Trust for Public Land did, overlay the areas that are park deserts, and then put on top of that the City land that’s available and we’ll just find opportunities, and maybe they’ll be places like this,” Boone explained, motioning to the vacant green space behind him.
The location, a cul-de-sac at the end of Bushmills Road, is next to a creek and greenway. It is overseen by Dallas Water Utilities and designated by the Trust for Public Land as a high-priority area for park conversion.
Boone emphasized that he will look for “quick wins,” explaining that “the focus is of doing something now, not coming up with projects that will be done 10 years from now, but something we can move forward with now at this stage.”
When asked if there was a specific timeline for park development or milestones he hopes to achieve in the first few years as greening czar, Boone told The Dallas Express, “Think we need to look at the data first. Look at these maps. … find out which matches seem right, and then kind of prioritize and look at it.”
“I hope that we’ll do something this year, I mean, there’s no doubt we can do that,” Boone added. “Beyond that, I don’t know until we have a definitive list.”
Ray Garvin, the Texas director of philanthropy for the Trust for Public Land, also spoke at the conference, echoing the mayor’s confidence in Boone.
“For the last nine years, we’ve had the privilege of working with both Garrett Boone and the City of Dallas to advance our goal of making sure that everyone in Dallas has a high-quality park or trail within a 10-minute walk of home,” Garvin said. “Our Trust for Public Land team is proud to call Garrett a friend, a supporter, and a partner to our work to connect everyone to the outdoors.”