CTroyMathis
05 April 2002, 02:09 AM
A sense of déjà vu downtown
04/05/2002
By STEVE BROWN / The Dallas Morning News
The proposal was controversial from the day it was announced.
An out-of-town developer asked the Dallas City Council to provide incentives for a major downtown project.
If the city agreed, the developer would build shops, hotel space and offices designed to bring people to the city's core. But the developer needed the city to provide a multimillion-dollar incentive package that would be repaid by taxes generated from the new development.
Sound familiar?
It should. But it's not the current Victory proposal.
This happened 24 years ago on Main Street.
And after months of wrangling and in-depth studies, the City Council was unanimous in its decision: No, thanks.
John Portman, the flamboyant Atlanta developer and architect who proposed the project, thought he had a deal Dallas couldn't refuse. Portman Properties would build a $140 million, multi-use complex connecting downtown's Neiman Marcus store with the historic Magnolia building.
The development was designed to give Dallas' downtown a kick in the pants and included a 51-story office and hotel tower, 900 hotel rooms and a four-story shopping mall anchored by Neiman Marcus.
Mr. Portman – who had already reshaped central business districts in Atlanta and San Francisco – argued that Dallas "needed something important happening in the central city to give it a focal point."
City leaders were receptive to the notion until they were presented with the bill – $22 million to condemn and purchase the land and build underground parking and truck docks.
Council members then expressed their "outrage" over the plan and said it was a gamble the city didn't need to take.
Mr. Portman didn't hang around to argue the point.
All these years later, few business leaders or city officials remember the Portman plan for Main Street.
As it turned out, it's probably best for downtown that the development didn't happen.
Big enclosed shopping malls are now passé in many urban locations.
Shoppers and tourists want the kind of "streetscape" provided by the old downtown buildings that would have been knocked down for the mall.
If Portman Properties had built its mall on Main Street, the city would probably now be wrestling with what to do with a white elephant.
04/05/2002
By STEVE BROWN / The Dallas Morning News
The proposal was controversial from the day it was announced.
An out-of-town developer asked the Dallas City Council to provide incentives for a major downtown project.
If the city agreed, the developer would build shops, hotel space and offices designed to bring people to the city's core. But the developer needed the city to provide a multimillion-dollar incentive package that would be repaid by taxes generated from the new development.
Sound familiar?
It should. But it's not the current Victory proposal.
This happened 24 years ago on Main Street.
And after months of wrangling and in-depth studies, the City Council was unanimous in its decision: No, thanks.
John Portman, the flamboyant Atlanta developer and architect who proposed the project, thought he had a deal Dallas couldn't refuse. Portman Properties would build a $140 million, multi-use complex connecting downtown's Neiman Marcus store with the historic Magnolia building.
The development was designed to give Dallas' downtown a kick in the pants and included a 51-story office and hotel tower, 900 hotel rooms and a four-story shopping mall anchored by Neiman Marcus.
Mr. Portman – who had already reshaped central business districts in Atlanta and San Francisco – argued that Dallas "needed something important happening in the central city to give it a focal point."
City leaders were receptive to the notion until they were presented with the bill – $22 million to condemn and purchase the land and build underground parking and truck docks.
Council members then expressed their "outrage" over the plan and said it was a gamble the city didn't need to take.
Mr. Portman didn't hang around to argue the point.
All these years later, few business leaders or city officials remember the Portman plan for Main Street.
As it turned out, it's probably best for downtown that the development didn't happen.
Big enclosed shopping malls are now passé in many urban locations.
Shoppers and tourists want the kind of "streetscape" provided by the old downtown buildings that would have been knocked down for the mall.
If Portman Properties had built its mall on Main Street, the city would probably now be wrestling with what to do with a white elephant.