the offical newsletter of DALLAS AREA RAPID TRANSIT - DART 25th Anniversary 2008

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Celebrating 25 Years In Motion

A letter from Raymond D. Noah
DART Board of Directors, 1984 - 2008

Car-free in the City

As gas prices soar, more commuters are grounding their cars – even giving them up – and flying DART to save time, money and headaches.

Live-work-play Connections

Savvy developers are breathing "life" into the "transit lifestyle" with mixed-use developments that let residents live, work and play without getting in traffic.

Delivering Customers

Up and down the rail lines, there's been a noticeable upswing in folks hopping on and off transit for dinner, shopping and nightlife.

Celebrating 25 Years!

Look back at DART's beginnings with Adlene Harrison, our first chairman, and look to the future with current Chairman Randall Chrisman. Then track our many milestone achievements over the years.

Transit in the Spotlight

When it's show time, North Texans are jumping on DART for comedy, drama, music and dance.

Growing Connections

Ridership is rising dramatically, and DART is working to ensure new riders have a positive experience and doubling the light rail network.

Short Trips

Green Line makes progress; transit access improves; poetry goes mobile; customers get one-button help; web welcomes newcomers; tour highlights rail life.

DART Board of Directors

DART Current and Future Services Map

DART: Live, On Tape and Online

Contact Webmaster at:
eelam@DART.org

Making live-work-play connections

"I don't think we would have chosen this location were
it not for the stations," says Jack Matthews,
whose seven-year goal is to turn South Lamar
into a vibrant, walkable neighborhood.

Savvy developers breathe "life" into the "transit lifestyle."

When Jack Matthews began transforming an industrial warehouse area along South Lamar into a thriving neighborhood of loft apartments, condos, restaurants and entertainment venues, it was no accident that his ventures were bookended by two DART Rail stations.

"I don't think we would have chosen this location were it not for the stations," says the soft-spoken Canadian-born developer, whose seven-year goal is to turn South Lamar into a vibrant, walkable neighborhood.

A decade ago, before Matthews Southwest began redeveloping the circa-1910 Sears Building into a 1.1-million-square-foot mix of apartments, artist studios, and retail establishments, the area was all but deserted with a little more than 60,000 square feet of occupied space and two liquor stores.

At the time, few people in Dallas were talking about transit-oriented development, but Matthews had plenty of exposure to the concept in Canada. The son of a construction company owner who helped build Calgary's light rail system in the 1980s, Matthews' first transit-oriented project was in Toronto. He moved to Dallas in 1994, bringing with him a growing interest in creating walkable, in-town neighborhoods.

Located adjacent to Cedars Station, The Beat is Matthews Southwest's newest entry to the blossoming South Side neighborhood.

The newest entry to Matthews' new urban enclave is The Beat, a 10-story concrete and glass condominium tower adjacent to DART's Cedars Station. Slated for occupancy this summer, the high-rise – the first of two planned – has an up-to-the-second, minimalist modern feel featuring generous walls of glass, private balconies with spectacular views of the Dallas skyline and the developing Trinity River Corridor, all within walking distance of South Side's A-list of hip restaurants, coffee shops, art galleries and clubs.

Convenient access to DART Rail has been a big selling point, according to Matthews, who points out that Beat residents are always just a train ride away from job centers and leisure venues in downtown Dallas, Victory Park, NorthPark, Richardson's Telecom Corridor – and in the next five years, the Stemmons Corridor, Las Colinas Urban Center and DFW International Airport.

Besides his blossoming South Side, Matthews is in exclusive negotiations with Dallas city officials who selected his company to build a convention center hotel. And if that isn't enough, he's also building the tallest office tower currently under construction in North America – The Bow, a 58-story curved tower in Calgary.

Leading the urban "cool" revolution
With more than $7 billion of live-work-play projects built, planned or projected next to DART's rail stations, observers like the Urban Land Institute are hailing Greater Dallas as the new national leader in transit-oriented development.

Downtown Plano was a pioneering transit-oriented development in a suburban locale.

"Anytime you have major development in infrastructure, like we've had with roads in the past, it's not uncommon to see private development rally around it," says Art Lomenick, managing director of the Trammell Crow Co. and High Street Residential, builders of 189 residential units and ground-floor retail dubbed 5th Street Crossing at Downtown Garland Station.

Lomenick says DART has gotten out front with light rail, and municipalities along the lines have embraced development around the stations with planning and zoning decisions that welcome mixed-use projects. Also, developers are seeing the success of already completed transit-oriented/pedestrian friendly areas.

"We've built enough mixed-use urban villages over the last 10 years that they have been proven in the marketplace," he says. "There's enough critical mass that people are saying, 'You know what. . . this is cool.'"

In addition, once gas prices topped $3 per gallon, "it's given these projects some running room," he says. "People have reached the tipping point where they're looking for alternatives to their cars."

Chris Leinberger, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, says Dallas still has a way to go up the list of the nation's most walkable cities, but all the new transit-oriented development is pushing the area ahead. "The underlying driver is the fact that the consumer wants it," he says.

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