Hensley Field Redevelopment back and it will cause more headaches. This time Dallas City Council will have no one to blame, but itself. Per a tweet from Mayor Johnson this morning, the Dallas City Council unanimously approved a contract to create a master plan for redeveloping Hensley Field in southern Dallas.
Hensley Field Redevelopment History
In January, Mayor Eric Johnson and a Trump White House official toured the former Naval Air Station Dallas. The gargantuan site known as Hensley Field is the one the city hopes to redevelop.
Both the Mayor and the Executive Director of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council, Scott Turner viewed the 738 acre site, which fronts Mountain Creek Lake, as a blank slate.
“I see incredible potential. A large site like this where you could do some mixed use housing. You could do some work force development and training. You could partner with Dallas Baptist University and some of our educational institutions. You’ve got multi-modal transportation opportunities here. It could be absolutely catalytic for the city,” said Johnson.
“To see the type of potential as the mayor said that’s here is very encouraging,” said Turner.
Mayor Johnson was there, and told Turner afterwards, he wanted to speak with him about Hensley Field. “I immediately said I want to come see it. I want to tour it. I want to see it for myself,” Turner said.
Johnson agreed.
“He said I’ll come see it, I want to put my feet on the ground there and I want to come look at it to help me understand it better so I can communicate it to the people I need to help things get rolling. So I’m confident we’ll make some progress. I’m very confident.”
Turner, a Republican and Johnson, a Democrat both served as State Representatives in the Texas Legislature and have remained friends since they moved on.
Johnson said, “He (Turner) really in a very convincing and heartfelt way expressed on behalf of the administration he works for their desire to be partners and work with local government on a bipartisan basis to get stuff done.”
The city’s Director of Environmental Quality and Sustainability, James McGuire said developing a site like Hensley Field from the ground up is rare. The city said while the Navy agreed to fully clean-up the contaminated site nearly 20 years ago, progress has stalled in recent years.
The Hensley Field Redevelopment could end up costing the city millions. The city current has not fulfilled its obligations to the mess created by Shingle Mountain despite a recent arrest. The past decade has been marred by city council choices to increase tax revenue with the equivalent of get rich quick schemes which always cost the taxpayer including the choice to frak on park land and more recently the plans for Reverchon Park.