{"id":366121,"date":"2026-07-09T00:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T00:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/366121\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T00:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T00:38:10","slug":"richardson-officials-ok-commercial-development-set-to-anchor-new-interurban-design-district-richardson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/366121\/","title":{"rendered":"Richardson officials OK commercial development set to anchor new “Interurban Design District” | Richardson"},"content":{"rendered":"

A development that property owner Stephen Graham called the \u201ccatalyst\u201d toward a new, edgy vision for Richardson\u2019s Interurban Street is headed for City Council<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The six-building commercial development on 2.5 acres at the corner of Interurban Street and Jackson Street was approved by Richardson\u2019s City Plan Commission in a 4-2 vote on July 7<\/a>. The project will now be considered at a future council meeting for final approval.<\/p>\n

What you need to know<\/p>\n

The plan includes building six new commercial buildings on the lot, totaling 41,436 square feet, city planner Christine Ross said. It will include 10 on-site parking spaces and 21 on-street spaces.<\/p>\n

The space is currently an empty plot of land, and the area features a large number of automotive businesses.<\/p>\n

Graham is marketing the corridor as the Interurban Design District and said developing all six buildings as one project would give developers the \u201crunway to actually change the corridor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of tinkering at the edges of a single lot, one owner can sequence a whole block,\u201d he said. \u201cOne owner can hold every building to the same design standard.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that the footprint of automotive businesses has already decreased by 80% in the area, while \u201cpreserving the quality local businesses.\u201d Collision repair center Solow Garage was permitted to stay<\/a> in the area, per a council decision last month.<\/p>\n

What they\u2019re saying<\/p>\n

Commission Chair Bryan Marsh and Vice Chair Jeremy Thomason voted against approval, citing parking concerns.<\/p>\n

While the project meets parking requirements since its being developed as one lot, Marsh said that the two buildings on either end of the development would not have enough parking if individually considered.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would be concerned as an investor or as an owner, or buyer, or lender that my individual lot does not meet the parking requirements on its own,\u201d he said. \u201cI really am looking for a way to try to approve this, but … what’s before us tonight does not include any additional parking other than what you’ve shown us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marsh also expressed concern that on-street parking in the area would not be sufficient to meet the demand.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I drove out there, there were about seven cars that were parked in front of the lot,\u201d he said. \u201cYou have 21 on-street parking spaces, and one third of them were gone just from overflow from the businesses on the west side. So to me, that’s the biggest challenge here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Richardson Director of Development Services Tina Firgens said that conversations on how to address parking in the area have already begun internally. Graham said he believes many of the parked cards on Interurban Street are overflow inventory from the area\u2019s automotive businesses.<\/p>\n

Commissioner Joe Quirk warned the commission against holding out for a \u201cperfect plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we need to get the ball rolling here,\u201d he said. \u201cHow long has this area been like this? We have got to get off the ground somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

The timeline<\/p>\n

Graham also owns the property across the street and said that work is currently being done to improve roofs, landscaping, paint and other tenant improvements in the area.<\/p>\n

He added that they just started pitching the lots to tenants three weeks ago and they\u2019ve had a cheesecake company, a restaurant, a general contractor and other tenants tour the space.<\/p>\n

The ultimate goal of the project, according to a presentation from Graham, is to extend the district to the southeast corner of Bishop Avenue and Davis Street.<\/p>\n

Quote of note<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything around [the lot] moved, and we didn’t see a problem, we saw an opportunity nobody has been able to unlock,\u201d Graham said. \u201cEvery district you and I admire started the same way with one project that proved it could work and gave everyone else confidence to follow. … None were built in a single phase, and none were created by regulation alone. They were created by investment, partnership and somebody willing to go first\u2014I’m willing to go first.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A development that property owner Stephen Graham called the \u201ccatalyst\u201d toward a new, edgy vision for Richardson\u2019s Interurban…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[129644,129645,160,162,161,959],"class_list":["post-366121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-plano","tag-interurban","tag-interurban-design-district","tag-plano","tag-plano-headlines","tag-plano-news","tag-richardson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}