Garland, TX – The City of Garland faces a wide array of challenges, the biggest of which may be that it is landlocked on all sides and has very little room to grow. Growth would fuel the income needed to address other issues, like crumbling infrastructure and roads. Those issues, in turn, impact the city’s ability to draw some of the major retailers (like HEB) that other cities in the area are attracting. There are, however, some developments taking place in District 3 which could start to change that.
“If you look out across Lake Ray Hubbard, what do you see? Rockwall and Rowlett,” City Councilman Ed Moore tells The Garland Gazette. “If you look at the development that’s taking place at Sapphire Bay, on just that small peninsula right there, that is becoming a destination location for Rowlett. That’s going to bring a lot of business. It’s going to bring business opportunities. It’s going to bring new people into that community. What any community, any city in Texas, ought to be attempting to do at this point, going across the lake at The Harbor over here, of course, is providing a palace for restaurants, concerts and entertainment so people can come together. It’s a destination location. Here in Garland we have Harbor Point, with Bass Pro and now a brand new Brazilian Steakhouse (Vila Brazil). That’s a three-four star restaurant in terms of the way you’re received and the type of food you’re going to receive. Having businesses like that move in will attract others.”
The Harbor used to have a boardwalk where people who were out enjoying Lake Ray Hubbard could dock and patronize the restaurants along the lake, but that boardwalk fell into disrepair and has since been removed. Rebuilding, improving and developing another boardwalk represents a tremendous opportunity for Garland.
“Garland is landlocked, so that means we can’t go horizontally, we have to go vertically,” says Moore, who represents District 3. “But there is one last frontier we haven’t even explored yet and that’s right here at Harbor Point. We may not have the land, but we have the water, and we can do some of the very same things. At this point, I think that we have convinced the city and hopefully convinced some of our colleagues that we need to invest some money here in Harbor Point. With the last bond that was passed, $35 million is going to be coming to this area, it will begin to impact the infrastructure. We used to have a marina, a boat dock right here next to Bass Pro Shop, but it’s not there anymore. We need to get something like that back here, because it fed these restaurants when people were on the water. More importantly, if we’re able to get this area to a point where people will come to it as a destination location, it will benefit all of Garland.”
Right now it isn’t all that easy to get to the businesses in The Harbor, but part of the construction that’s taking place along I-30 will include easy on-off access from the freeway to The Harbor. Additionally, the planned extension of the George Bush Tollway has the potential to be a boon for Garland.
“We’re talking about extending George Bush 190 from 30 all the way over to 80 and then to 20,” says Moore. “What is that going to cause in this area? It’s going to be an explosion in the way of traffic and in the way of people coming through to get to Dallas, into other areas. We’re hoping that economic development will begin to take place such that our demographics will begin to bring people who are wanting to develop and who are wanting to build and who are wanting to grow. Hopefully, it will entice them to come to this area now. This is my last two years, and this is the thing that I’m going to put a lot of my time into these next two years.”
The other area of District 3 which is undergoing a transformation is what used to be Eastern Hills Country Club. Sitting open for more than a decade, that area is about to be developed into an upscale community which will not only bring in new residents and revenue, but also enhance area property values. It will include roughly 300 homes ranging from 1,700 to 2,000 square feet selling for no less than $500K. The development is projected to create approximately $150 million in additional annual tax revenue for Garland. It may seem like a stretch for a community of smaller homes, but it turns out that smaller is the new bigger.
“I also serve on the Regional Transportation Commission, RTC, the RMC, and that gives me the opportunity to kind of see what’s happening, not just in Garland, but around the state,” Moore explains. “Believe it or not, this new generation, this new population, they’re not looking for 4000 5000 square foot homes on two acres. They’re looking for nice apartments, townhomes, condos, they’re looking for amenities. They want to be able to walk out of their door and there is retail and nice restaurants. That’s what they’re looking for, so yes, small today is better, but do understand something else. The State of Texas, our legislators themselves see with the population growth that is taking place by 2050 this state is going to explode in the way of new population growth. Where are we going to put these people? You can’t continue to build these big homes. The latest legislation that has come out of Austin, the legislators have made it possible for builders to come in and build apartments or to build homes without even having to go through the city. Now that makes it difficult for a city to be able to govern, but they are seeing that the cities are reluctant because we’re so caught up in tradition. We’re so caught up in the way that it was and the way it used to be. We cannot, even at my age, we can’t continue to live along those lines. It won’t happen. So I see the wave, I see what we can be in our future, and I’m a willing participant in it.”
The kind of transformation that has taken place in South Garland may seem like an insurmountable challenge for much of the rest of the city, but it wasn’t that long ago the transforming District 3 looked like an impossible task, as well.
“When I came into office, the people felt that South Garland was the armpit of Garland,” says Moore. “There was no money coming down here. Half the time they didn’t even know who their City Council representative was. I told them that we were going to make a difference on that. This is one of the oldest parts of Garland, and yet we have been steadily redeveloping the whole area. The development of The Harbor, the affordable care apartments we just built, NTTA building the tollway, there’s a lot going on to continue to reinvigorate our city.”
Of course, for any area of a city to be rebuilt, the residents have to be prepared to not only accept but also participate in the changes.
“Lots of Garland residents were at the meeting about extending 190,” says Moore. “They wanted to know how it’s going to impact them, because some of these people are going to lose their property and that highway goes through. One of the good things that I enjoyed listening to was they recognized that in order for this area to be truly built up, a lot of them are going to have to begin to do things in the way of updating their own homes when you bring in new development into an area. Hopefully, that sends a message to those who are already here that if we want to grow it, we want to continue to be viable, sustainable, then we are going to have to up our game. That’s one of the things that I’m hoping will happen on the south side of Garland, but there are going to be some displacements down here. There’s no doubt about that.”
A drive across Garland offers a strange dichotomy of communities. Some are old and decaying, some are shiny and new, like the restored downtown square, and some are somewhere in between. The hope is that, by continuing to transform South Garland, it will encourage and inspire the revitalization of the rest of the city.
“That’s I believe that, yes,” agrees Moore. “There is an opportunity to bring money, not only into this area, because just like the downtown square, there are people now and it’s a destination location.”
Maybe that would make people think twice about moving out to the traffic-laden areas a little further North and East of Garland and be a part of an exciting transformation taking place right here.
