LH Press Library
New DART Rail Station Back on Track
Agency commits $10M for project at Skillman, Walnut Hill
Lake Highlands People, by Bruce Phelps
November 10, 2006
DART, which has planned for years to add a light-rail station in Lake Highlands, now believes it has the necessary commitment from a real estate developer to set the wheels in motion toward a rail stop at the intersection of Skillman Street and Walnut Hill Lane. The plan falls under the agency’s long-range 2030 rail expansion plan. The work in lake highlands could fit within the agency’s fiscal year 2008 budget, according to DART spokesman Morgan Lyons.
“Lake Highlands is not an extension,” he said, “it’s already on the blue line. This is just changing a ‘deferred’ station to a ‘non-deferred’ station.”
The DART board of directors voted in late October to commit $10 million to the proposed project. The amount hinges on a firm deal secured by a real estate developer to construct what Dallas City Councilman Bill Blaydes called a “transit-oriented” development at the rail stop.
“Think Mockingbird Station,” he said. “That’s the example of the development, with residential, commercial, and office space that is driven by that station. People can live there, play there, and get to wherever they want to go. They might not need their cars until the weekend.”
Blaydes said a commercial developer has placed a buyout bid on the Whisper Creek I and II apartments at the northeast quadrant of the Skillman-Walnut Hill intersection, although he declined to reveal the developer because the contract has yet to close.
Richard Aguilera, chief executive officer of Cash Investments of El Paso LP, said the same developer placed a bid on the Bella Palms apartments near the intersection. Jack Wierzenski, director of economic development and planning for DART, said the proposal to build a mixed-use station hinges on financial triggers executed by the developer and infrastructure additions made to the area by the city. As “certain triggers” are initiated, he said, DART will allocate the $10 million.
“We’ve had three different proposals submitted in that area, but they never went anywhere,” he said. “During the last three years, demand has bubbled to the surface, and Bill Blaydes has brought in the developer to justify our investment.”
Ray Washburne, president and chief operating officer of Charter Holdings, the commercial real estate firm that renovated Kingsley Square near the proposed station, said the construction process would require heavy lifting in terms of demolition and redevelopment.
“The names I’ve heard bandied about are big companies that can handle that type of job,” he said. “I’m pretty confident it’s going to happen.”
Wierzenski said that if the proposal comes to fruition and construction was to start on the rail platform section of the station, the job would present a new set of problems previously not faced by DART.
“The complication of this platform is that we’ll be building it with an operating train on the line,” he said. “This would be the first time we’ve done this.”
Blaydes indicated a firm belief that the deal will go through, partly because the company that placed the bid and prepared the proposal “is a well-known local developer” with other properties close to or along light-rail lines.
The new rail station should be completed within five years, he said.
Lyons said DART’s planned cash commitment would remain in place for the foreseeable future, whether the existing proposal emerges, gets delayed, or falls through and another developer comes in with a new proposal.
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