The Dallas Morning News: New I-35 deck park in Dallas’ Oak Cliff gets $10.5M in private money
Southern Gateway Park is currently being built over the highway near the Dallas Zoo in southern Dallas.
A new, 5-acre southern Dallas deck park being built over Interstate 35E has most of the money needed to pay for half the project, the nonprofit group overseeing the plan announced Tuesday.
The latest round of private donations, announced during a news conference at Dallas City Hall, pushes funding for the first half of the project to around 75%, said April Allen, president and COO of the Southern Gateway Public Green Foundation. The first part is expected to cost around $82 million.
Allen described the project as “a park with a purpose” that would spark more growth and economic opportunity for southern Dallas and serve as a bridge to reconnect parts of Oak Cliff that were divided when the highway was built in the 1950s.
The donations include $10.5 million from the Rees-Jones Foundation, Communities Foundation of Texas, the Eugene McDermott Foundation and the Rainwater Charitable Foundation.
“We all know that the historic underinvestment in southern Dallas has stymied its residents’ growth and success,” Allen said. “By drawing eyes, dollars and feet to this area, we believe that the Southern Gateway Park will be the first step to reversing this neglect.”
Southern Gateway Park is currently being built over the highway near the Dallas Zoo between Ewing and Marsalis Avenues and has a planned opening of late 2023 or early 2024.
About half the park will be built from Ewing Avenue to Lancaster Avenue during the first phase. It’s expected to cost $90 million for the second half that would continue along the highway toward Marsalis Avenue. It’s unclear when that portion would open.
The concept of the greenspace is modeled after Klyde Warren Park in Uptown, which is built over the top of Woodall Rodgers Freeway.
When I-35 was built, it cut through the Tenth Street Historic District in Oak Cliff and led to the demolition of dozens of homes and businesses. Tenth Street, one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods, was founded by former slaves after the Civil War, and it is one of the few intact freedmen’s towns in the country.
But today it’s one of the poorest areas in the city. In 2018, the area’s median household income was $25,385 a year, less than half the Dallas County median, according to Census Bureau data.
Allen said after the news conference that her foundation is looking into ways to help keep longtime residents from getting priced out of their homes in the area, including helping advocate for statewide policy changes that could minimize property tax increases. She also said the foundation hopes to help raise the majority of the remaining $20 million through private donations.
Of the $172 million for the overall project, funding sources so far include Dallas contributing $7 million through 2017 bond money; $40 million expected to come from the North Central Texas Council of Governments; and at least $35 million in private money raised by the Southern Gateway Public Green Foundation.
Mayor Eric Johnson, who was among several city dignitaries at the news conference, said he is among generations of Dallas residents who have grown up in the city knowing I-35 as a barrier as well as a transportation and trade corridor. He dismissed the notion that the park would be a carbon copy of Klyde Warren Park because of its connection to neighborhoods.
“Southern Gateway Park should be viewed as what it is,” he said, “which is a game-changing investment in the people and the families of southern Dallas.”