WASHINGTON (February 8, 2021) – Dallas must invest in its communities in and around the Walnut Hill/Denton Drive Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) station by centering on the needs of people in the community, addressing safety and climate concerns and building upon the areas of strength. This is according to the Urban Land Institute (ULI) in a report released today. The Urban Land Institute is a global, member-driven organization comprising more than 45,000 real estate and urban development professionals with more than 1400 of these members belonging to the ULI Dallas-Fort Worth District Council. At all levels, ULI’s members are dedicated to advancing the Institute’s mission of shaping the future of the built environment for transformative impact in communities worldwide.

The report is based on recommendations from a panel of land use and resilience experts convened last August to focus on recovery and resiliency in the tornado-ravaged area of northwest Dallas.  The City of Dallas asked ULI to focus on this geographic area and convene a Virtual Advisory Services Panel (vASP) offering. An executive summary report detailing the panel’s recommendations is published after the panel engagement.

The report recommends the city:

• Foster an authentic sense of place along with a sense of community;
• Make the area safe and welcoming through supportive strategies;
• Provide connectivity and address climate resilience through ecological, placemaking and infrastructure enhancements
• Adapt the study area to increasing extreme heat and flooding through green and resilient parks and open spaces
• Enhance mobility within the study area; and
• Encourage commercial and residential development that enlivens the transit station and surrounding area, increases housing choice, and supports the community’s vision.

The panel was chaired by ULI member Ladd Keith, assistant professor of planning and sustainable built environments, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona. “The City of Dallas requested that the Urban Land Institute convene a panel of national experts to examine the social, economic, and environmental conditions of the Walnut Hill DART Station study are,” said Keith. “We could not visit the study area in person due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it created an opportunity to pilot the virtual Advisory Service Panel format which included everything from virtual stakeholder interviews to a drone tour of the study area. The virtual panel format succeeded in bringing the expertise of ULI members from around the country to Dallas to provide practical recommendations to equitably enhance the resilience of the community.”

Keith was joined on the panel by Pegy Brimhall, principal, Figurd Development, San Antonio, Texas; Jill Allen Dixon, associate principal planner, Sasaki, Boston, Massachusetts; Chanceé Lundy, cofounder, Nspiregreen LLC, Washington, D.C.; and Riki Nishimura, associate principal, Populous, San Francisco, California.

The Dallas virtual Advisory Services panel is part of a larger series of resilience technical assistance and learning opportunities, called the Resilient Land Use Cohort (RLUC). The RLUC is a network of ULI district councils, member experts, and community partners in eight cities working together to identify strategies to be more resilient in the face of climate change and other vulnerabilities, including floods, extreme storms, drought, wildfire, and extreme heat, as well as the related social, environmental, and economic impacts. Funding for this engagement and the cohort is provided by the ULI Foundation through support from JPMorgan Chase.

Virtual Advisory Services panels (vASP) are a new Advisory Services offering, created as a response to continuing ULI’s mission of creating vibrant, sustainable communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lasting 2.5 days, they convene a multi-disciplinary panel of 4 to 6 experts from across the United States who possess a range of professional backgrounds and use their collective skills to meet the needs of an identified land use or policy challenge.

Now in its 72^nd year, the ULI Advisory Services Program assembles experts in the fields of real estate and land use planning to participate on panels worldwide, offering recommendations for complex planning and development projects, programs and policies. The program has convened more than 700 panel engagements addressing a broad range of land use challenges, from housing affordability to downtown revitalization.

According to Thomas Eitler, senior vice president of ULI’s Advisory Services Program, the strength of the program lies in ULI’s unique ability to draw on the substantial knowledge of its 45,000-plus members, including land developers, engineers, public officials, academics, lenders, architects, planners and urban designers. “The independent views of the panelists bring a fresh perspective to the land use challenge,” Eitler said. “The advisory services program is all about offering creative, innovative approaches to community building.”

You can find the Dallas virtual Advisory Services Panel report on ULI’s Knowledge Finder platform.