On Tuesday, Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson announced that Oncor Electric Delivery is donating 110 acres of land to the city for a new park.
According to Johnson, it is the largest parkland donation to the city since 1938 when William Worthington Samuell gave more than 600 acres of farmland. The donated land sits along the west side of White Rock Lake in South Dallas and includes Parkdale Lake.
“This new park is going to mean a great deal to us,” Johnson said. “Critically, this donation gives us Parkdale Lake. It’s going to be a new lake for our residents that I personally hope is going to have recreational offerings like fishing.”
The property was used as farmland until flooding in the 1950s caused it to be abandoned. It was also the site of the Parkdale Steam Electric Station power plant until 2005 when it was decommissioned.
Oncor took ownership of the land in 2010 and still owns the ground on the east side of White Rock Lake. Oncor CEO Allen Nye said the Parkdale lake site has sat remained unused by the utility company. The company had been conversing with the city and others about donating it to Dallas Park and Recreation for three years.
Councilman Adam Bazaldua represents the area where the property sits. He said the site would benefit substantially from the expansive, new public park that the city will build on the property.
“The acquisition of this Parkdale Lake will advance not only recreation and quality of life assets to the residents that surround it, but also act as an engine and an anchor to economic growth in the surrounding area,” Bazaldua said.
The Parkdale Lake property will help the city complete its “LOOP” project, a planned bike and hike trail system that’ll connect 11 miles of new trails with 39 miles of existing trails and loop around the city.
One of the biking and walking trails created through the LOOP is to go through the newly-donated property and connect White Rock Lake to the Trinity Forest.
Philip Hiatt Haigh is executive director of the Circuit Trail Conservancy, the nonprofit group partnering with Dallas to develop the LOOP. 1
“We are going to be utilizing the lake to address all of the hydrology issues that we have delivering a project in the floodplain by tapping the lake,” Haigh said.
Haigh said construction on the southern portion of the trail project is slated to continue next year, and overall completion of the entire project will cost about $16 million. The nonprofit conservancy group is heading the fundraising effort for the project.