City leaders are turning to new development on vacant parking lots at Fair Park to cover $55 million in long-deferred repairs to the historic site’s HVAC systems, plumbing, and roofs.
The strategy draws from the revenue model used at New York’s Brooklyn Bridge Park, where income from events, concessions, parking, and on-site construction helps sustain operations without straining public budgets. Dallas took over day-to-day management of Fair Park more than six months ago after the previous operator was accused of misusing funds, as The Dallas Express reported at the time.
John Jenkins, director of the Dallas Park and Recreation Department, said officials plan to build hotels, restaurants, and parking garages on about 50 acres of empty lots on the northeast side of the campus. The construction would replace any surface parking that is lost while leaving the park’s Art Deco buildings and historic features untouched.
“This hasn’t been an easy road, but guess what? It is going to be something all of us are going to look back at two years from today and say it was well worth it,” Jenkins said, Fox 4 KDFW reported.
The city is also working with Visit Dallas to keep the park’s venues active year-round with community events, high school sports, and Cotton Bowl games. Officials hope the Dallas Area Rapid Transit agency will pursue a transit-oriented project around the nearby MLK Station to draw more visitors and economic activity to the surrounding neighborhoods.
Jenkins described his vision for success in the next two to three years.
“It looks like more high school sports. It looks like more games in the Cotton Bowl. It looks like a year-round operation. And it looks like spreading to the outside of the park. I’m talking about as far as opportunities for the small businesses in the community to thrive with better sidewalks, additional patrols, better traffic flow. That is what success looks like to me in this two-to-three-year range,” he said.
Jenkins added that a key early milestone would be breaking ground on a long-planned community park within the Fair Park grounds.
“Success looks like in a year from today, hopefully, if the community supports it and the council and board supports it, hopefully, in a year from today we can have a groundbreaking,” Jenkins said.
Fair Park First, the group leading fundraising for the community park, has until August 25 to secure the final $7 million needed to start construction.
Jenkins acknowledged the challenges but expressed confidence that the development-driven approach would preserve the landmark while generating the money required for repairs. Any new hotels or restaurants built on the site would be required to include parking garages to offset the loss of parking spaces due to construction.