An often overlooked Dallas suburb has evolved its historic downtown into a vibrant cultural hot spot reminiscent of the renowned Bishop Arts District.
The next step in that transformation is redeveloping to build density and get more business activity.
Courtesy of Nate Jarnagin
Garland redeveloped its downtown square to add community seating and play areas in 2023.
The city of Garland completed a two-year, $30M redevelopment of its downtown that turned it into a pedestrian-friendly hub of new restaurants and independent retailers. It was the first step in the same strategy that pulled the Bishop Arts District out of obscurity and into one of Dallas’ hottest neighborhoods.
Revitalizing Downtown Garland has been a 25-year endeavor to create a destination, Garland Economic Development Director Ayako Schuster said. As the neighborhood’s status grows, officials hope it will draw further development to the surrounding area and the city as a whole.
Garland initially developed as a manufacturing hub with a strong industrial base.
It is 97% built out, so Schuster said officials are focused on redevelopment to bring new residents and businesses to the city.
As the downtown area fills in, GroundFloor Development CEO Brandon Bolin said vacant warehouses and industrial spaces could be utilized for creative endeavors and things like breweries. But he expects investors could also begin aggregating land, tearing down warehouses and preparing sites to go vertical.
Multifamily investors love multi-acre sites in cool areas, but he said those can be hard to find.
“You can get that in Garland,” Bolin said.
Garland officials expect to get the full results of an ongoing housing study in the next few months, Schuster said. However, the study’s initial recommendation was that there is a need for 2,000 residential units in the Downtown Garland area.
Courtesy of GroundFloor Development
The first phase of the $34M The Draper project added 155 multifamily units on the edge of Downtown Garland.
Walter Bialas, an industry veteran who is head of research at Goodwin Advisors, said there are similarities between Downtown Garland and Bishop Arts that could be offer road map for Garland’s evolution. Buildings from the late 1800s and early 1900s that have been repurposed for new uses have given both authenticity that residents and visitors love.
“You can’t go into Preston Center and knock down some of those … older buildings and create something that’s authentic,” Bialas said. “You can create something that’s really nice and fancy, but not authentic.”
Garland has utilized the same recipe that made Bishop Arts a weekend destination for dinner, drinks and fun, Younger Partners Senior Vice President Michael Ytem said. However, he believes it caters to a different crowd.
“What we used to do in Oak Cliff, now we can do in Downtown Garland, but with the family in tow,” Ytem said.
Garland’s downtown square features buzzy restaurants like the New Haven-style pizza place Fortunate Son, boutique shopping, and the art deco Plaza Theatre from 1941 surrounding a huge event lawn with a children’s play structure.
Downtown Garland also has a Dallas Area Rapid Transit station that provides the same kind of transit convenience as the Bishop Arts Trolley that runs from that district to Union Station.
In the early 2000s, Dallas invested in rebuilding the streetscape in the 10-block Bishop Arts neighborhood in Oak Cliff and cut parking requirements in half to allow more restaurants and retail to repurpose existing buildings. The area was then rezoned to allow greater density and attract a larger customer base to live in the neighborhood.
Increased density is the key element Downtown Garland needs to duplicate the success of Bishop Arts, Bolin said. He officed in Bishop Arts as it started growing, and his current company, GroundFloor Development, added 155 multifamily units to the western edge of Downtown Garland as part of its $34M mixed-use project The Draper.
Those units are 92% occupied with rents that have exceeded expectations, Bolin said. The second phase will turn the 39K SF Chase Bank building into a five-story mixed-use space.
“If Garland keeps on moving in the right direction, it’s a similar story,” Bolin said of the comparison to Bishop Arts.
To get new housing on the ground, Bolin said Garland needs to incentivize multifamily and mixed-use developers.
The Bishop Arts District is a 10-block neighborhood in the Oak Cliff area of Dallas.
Schuster said city officials understand the area hasn’t reached its full potential and further investment will be needed to do so. That could mean offering incentives or creating public-private partnerships for the right deal.
“It depends on the numbers,” Schuster said. “The private sector always has to look at return on investment, and it’s the same thing on our end as well.”
Garland officials also have a plan to spur development on the south side of the city. In June, Garland City Council rezoned 317 acres north of Interstate 635 for urban residential and urban business districts.
The rezoning, which includes the huge former site of Hypermart, clears the way for a project like the 240-acre Legacy West campus in Plano or the 186-acre CityLine development in Richardson that have helped transform those cities.
Schuster said that area has attracted a lot of interest from developers, but officials are still waiting on the right project — especially as downtown’s status grows.
Business and employee numbers are where Downtown Garland trails Bishop Arts the most.
Bishop Arts has more than 8,000 businesses and nearly 89,000 employees within 3 miles, according to CoStar data. Garland has just over 4,700 businesses and more than 40,000 employees within the same distance of downtown.
Bishop Arts’ 53,000 households within a 3-mile radius outnumber Downtown Garland’s 38,000, but Bialas said that difference isn’t huge. Households making more than $100K per year are closer, with Downtown Garland boasting 10,000 within 3 miles, compared to Bishop Arts’ 13,000.
The two districts are closest when comparing average household income within 3 miles, as Downtown Garland’s is $79K per year and Bishop Arts’ is $80K per year.
“That doesn’t compare favorably to DFW overall because we’re such an affluent overall community, but those are still solid numbers,” Bialas said.
“There’s potential for Downtown Garland to reinforce what it is and maybe even become a little bit more than what it is.”