The Dallas City Council could decide on a path forward for Fair Park’s long-promised community park by taking control of the decision-making process Wednesday.
For months, the multimillion-dollar project has sat in limbo as Dallas Park and Recreation Board officials weigh giving an embattled nonprofit permission to build it. Council members could now consider giving a new agreement to that nonprofit, Fair Park First.
Jason Brown, Fair Park First’s board chair, said the development agreement with the city is coupled with guardrails. “If we don’t perform, we don’t get to play,” he said.
The document has various deadlines for fundraising and construction, and provisions ensure the city will own all the improvements.
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But before that, the City Council will have to greenlight taking the Park Board’s authority away from the matter.
Typically, the Park Board oversees park-related issues, but council member Adam Bazaldua, overseeing Fair Park’s district, has made it clear that he would push for the City Council to take over if delays imperil funding.
Park Board President Arun Agarwal has urged caution in giving Fair Park First a contract to develop the park. He said the choice to offload the community park’s oversight from under the Park Board to the City Council is ultimately “the council’s decision.”
Agarwal also put together a taskforce to review Fair Park First’s work, a move that has ruffled feathers. Agarwal has said without the taskforce, it’s hard to justify Fair Park First’s ability to complete the project without due diligence “because right now, they have not shown any capability to perform,” he said.
But in a statement Tuesday, Bazaldua threw his support behind the nonprofit and said he had personally reviewed documents and progress and feels the nonprofit can deliver the park.
“I am not asking for anything more than what has already been promised: the long-awaited community park,” Bazaldua said.
The move comes after South Dallas community advocates, led by Senate candidate and U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, pressed the council to break a stalemate over the community park’s development. Tensions have grown over the past several months, with leaders warning that the more than $30 million raised for the park could be in jeopardy if the project is further delayed.
The 10-acre community park, planned to have a host of amenities and community spaces, was part of a decades long effort to repair damage after the city razed homes to build parking lots at Fair Park.
Through community input, Fair Park First has said the green space was planned near Exposition and South Fitzhugh avenues. But the tensions between factions of the Park Board and Fair Park First were mired in concerns of the community greenspace moving to a new location altogether.
The project has faced uncertainty since 2024, after it was disclosed that nearly $6 million in donor funds were spent on day-to-day operations rather than capital projects. Several vendors have not received payments.
Last year, the city cut ties with Fair Park First and Oak View Group, the park’s venue manager. Since then, Fair Park First leaders have said they tightened governance and brought in experienced board members to move the park forward.
Alendra Lyons, who founded the Mill City Community Association, said she’s seen projects like a new deck park in Oak Cliff materialize while the community park has yet to come to fruition.
The frustrating delay has her questioning how neighborhoods like hers in South Dallas are prioritized, she said, adding that she wants to see the project break ground.
“Somebody needs to hold them accountable and make sure that this thing goes through,” Lyons said of everyone involved with building the park. “They just need to do the right thing, and just do it.”
This reporting is part of the Future of North Texas, a community-funded journalism initiative supported by the Commit Partnership, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, the Dallas Mavericks, the Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Lisa and Charles Siegel, the McCune-Losinger Family Fund, The Meadows Foundation, the Perot Foundation, the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas and the University of Texas at Dallas. The News retains full editorial control of this coverage.