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A Proposal for Revitalizing Farmers Branch Through Four Corners Redevelopment
By Jeffrey Rous, PhD

The Vision Plan for the Four Corners involves replacing much of the vacant retail space with housing as newer nearby shopping options mean Farmers Branch cannot support nearly as much retail at this location as was originally built. But residential units won't add much economic power to the area. It is really hard to find any mixed use development in Dallas, or in Texas, or anywhere in the U.S. where the residential component meaningfully supports local retail or restaurants. It might, if we could attract 1,000 high income residents, but that seems extremely unlikely. The excess retail capacity needs to be replaced with other community uses that will bring the 8,000 Farmers Branch residents that live within two miles to the area to shop, work, and play and in doing so, create something truly unique that enriches the environment for everyone and makes Farmers Branch a place people want to move to and raise their families.

Farmers Branch is what public administrators and academics call an inner-ring, or first-tier suburb. That is, one of the first suburbs developed outside a central city between 1930 and 1970. In cities across the United States, these suburbs mostly share one thing in common -- they are beginning to lose or have lost their appeal to the type of young, affluent, and educated families that settled these suburbs originally. When these families bypass inner-ring suburbs for the newer-bigger-better houses and more highly-ranked schools available in the new suburbs, older suburbs become more diverse in terms of the age, income, and cultural background of the residents. Nationally, reversing these demographic trends has not been successful, yet many inner-ring suburbs have remained prosperous, sustainable, thriving communities. This has been accomplished by embracing their newfound diversity and marshalling available resources to create a real sense of community and shared purpose. Achieving this goal requires a wise use of resources targeting efforts that bring people together.

In Farmers Branch, the city council has done a number of things that they think add to the quality of life in the Branch and therefore, increase demand to live in the city. It may be that they are right here and there, but their strategic plan seems to be to keep throwing things against the wall in hopes that something will stick. Their haphazard way of doing things misses the most important point. What makes cities attractive -- when they do not have the exclusivity or high valued housing of the Park Cities -- is social energy. Think of all the great places you have ever been. The one thing I bet they have in common (ok, except maybe places like the Grand Canyon) is social energy. The Champs Elysees in Paris, Leicester Square in London, Plaza de Mayor in Madrid, Times Square in NYC, Millenium Park in Chicago, and in Dallas, Highland Park Village, the Galleria, Mockingbird Station, and Uptown are all places people like to go because there are lots of other people there. How do you create that in Farmers Branch? You give a variety of people a variety of reasons to be close to each other. Highland Park Village and the Galleria pull people together mainly for shopping, but economic realities probably mean that a retail focus won't work here. For residential development to be the source of this energy would require an Uptown level of density necessitating high rise housing development, something we are unlikely to see at Four Corners. Clearly, Farmers Branch like all inner-ring suburbs, has to take a different path.

Farmers Branch has great parks, a treasured library, the historic park, a community garden, a college, the senior center, the recreation center, great sports facilities, a bird watching park, a soon-to-open skate park, and other publicly provided amenities that attract people. However, each is isolated, and therefore the social energy created is limited and fleeting. The result is that the sum of the parts is still only the sum of the parts. The $400,000 fountain will not bring families together and probably has fallen far short of raising property values by the $400,000 necessary for it to be considered a good deal -- not to mention maintenance costs. Because of its location, the skate park will only be interesting to the kids who use it. Library patrons have little reason to hang around once they are done in the building. Freedom Park is mostly empty - its proximity to I-35 cannot possibly create a peaceful atmosphere.

But imagine if Four Corners had a skate park area, next to a fountain kids could play in during the summer heat, with an area devoted to honoring veterans, a community garden, a dog park and a new library, with strip centers on two sides containing smaller shops and restaurants. This would give all sorts of Farmers Branch residents multiple reasons to visit the area all during the week and throughout the year. People would go there to hang out, simply because it is socially energizing. Areas like that become desirable destinations and people like to live in places with this type of high social energy. Once this is established, facilitating residential development to fill in the gaps will only add another positive dimension to the area. Planners refer to these areas as having a "sense of place," and creating this sense of place has long been known to be essential to economic revitalization of urban and suburban neighborhoods. It is time for Farmers Branch to coordinate and focus its efforts in this direction.

Jeffrey Rous, PhD
Associate Professor of Economics
University of North Texas
www.midopolis.blogspot.com

Dr. Rous' Response to Reader comments - All good points and suggestions. I am not sure we need a huge attraction to bring people in from all over North Texas, but we do need to bring people from all over Farmers Branch. Until a couple of weeks ago, we had a great resource on the site, an old and cheap building. I have not been given permission to use the name of the developer (I am still waiting to hear back from him), but I know of a developer who wanted to buy the old Albertson's building and repurpose it in a way that was perfect for Farmers Branch. All he wanted from the city was a smooth rezoning process. Instead, the city decided to move ahead with the flawed Vision Plan. And with their $7million expenditure and demolition, they have succeeded in making redevelopment MUCH more expensive. Lastly, I have emailed the city to find out about the proposals submitted for Four Corners, but no one has responded. I'd love to know what developers are willing to put in that SE corner and how much they want to be subsidized for the privilege.

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From Gordon Peterson

I think it's fairly outrageous to talk about how AFTER a developer comes on  board, the SE corner could contain a supermarket, retail, restaurant(s), and the 
like.  Of course, that's what it HAD, before the city bought it and tore it down.

Especially given that the overhead and rents for a redevelopment will doubtless be SUBSTANTIALLY higher than they were for the buildings the city will demolish.

Stupid, stupid.

I tend to agree wuth Dr. Rous' opinion that we cannot get enough business from Farmers Branch local residents to support the type of center the City seems to want there. In order to make something REALLY vibrant, we need to attract people from further afield, and that means something different and interesting enough that people will come from further away to spend money there.

That doesn't mean dry cleaners and insurance sales offices.

Instead, it means specialty retailers, restaurants, galleries, entertainment places, and other interesting places more like what the Stockyards area of Fort Worth provides... and that attracts people even from outside the DFW area.

I suggested, for example, a "speakers corner" like in London's Hyde Park where free speech is encouraged and welcomed. That creates a magnet for public gathering and active participation. Areas for buskers and other street performers (mimes, for example) would also be fun. The area should also be on several high-frequency transit lines, to make it easy to get to, and maybe a place where people would enjoy hanging out while waiting for a connecting bus.

Covers should provide shade and protection from rainshowers.

There should also be a (free!) parking garage to enable auto-based visitors to easily park their car nearby, too... this is key to areas like Mockingbird Station, or even downtown Fort Worth.

But just doing local-type generic retail locations, all totally forgettable and uninteresting, guarantees that the area will never become a magnet for anything (or any money) from outside the immediate area.

What we want is to create something unique, interesting, and compelling that people come to (and spend time and money at) from all over the DFW area.

From Ruben Rendon

I have just finished reading Dr. Rous' article on the 4 corners and he has some great ideas for redevelopment. I agree with him that a "sense of place" is what drives developments such as the 4 corners. Given my 11 years on the Farmers Branch P & Z, I can see that his vision makes sense. I would only add one more idea. It would be great if the city could convince Brookhaven College to move its continuing education classes to a new building on the 4 corners. This would bring not only young people but also those professionals that are life long learners. Imagine a the library, Brookhaven continuing ed. classes, a fountain, and some green space. Before long we have developers knocking down our doors to add resturants, etc. Kudos for a great article Dr. Rous.

From Mil Avery

I agree with the Doc. Makes a lot of sense and very usable by the current residents.

From Karen Hopkins, SPHR, CMP, MA

Dr. Rous' ideas are well founded and insightful. I agree with his view that the City of Famers Branch has no cohesive development plan - it is more like a bit of this and a bit of that with the fond hope that something will work.  Instead of spending $3.3 million (or more) on a futile, senseless court fight, some of those funds could have been invested in true planning and development. Another portion of that money could have been invested in code enforcement, which would have improved the existing property in FB and likely priced some of the residents out of the area that the mayor and council consider undesirable. We could also have had a million to spare as well.  Instead, the attorneys get richer, the mayor and the council bring embarrassment to the city, and the city gets poorer in many ways.

It would be very nice and educational if Dr. Rous would speak at the upcoming City Council meeting in early April.

From David Shiner

Jeffrey Rous's proposal looks great to me.

From Lauree Rodgers

In regards to the Four Corners. It will be impossible for something to be done, to please everyone. I would like to see retail shops, antique shops, speciality food shops, for example a bagel shop, coffee shop. Take Fredericksburg, Texas for example. This is a big tourist area, but of course, we don't have the land, to go that big. But I do admit, I miss a grocery being there.

From Damian Atha

Dr. Rous' proposal is very practical and well thought out. My suggestion would build on that line of thinking. Any type of facility that caters to cars & parking of cars over pedestrian, bicycle, and low tech locomotion will kill the attraction of people that make these places interesting. While antique stores and boutiques are quaint an eye toward infrastructure would assure continued development. Therefore I suggest an artist designed, Eiffel Tower like, structure over the intersection of Valley View and Josey with a multifunctional purpose; elevated crosswalks for safety, mount for traffic signals, observation deck for people appeal, cell phone tower to meet the trend in 4G communications, mount for energy efficient street lighting, information kiosk on deck, and high tech flag display site.

From Carla Peacock

I prefer the proposal by Jeffrey Rous, Ph.D.