According to the Dallas Morning News, Hensley Field, a former Navy base located 12 miles west of downtown Dallas, is attracting some interest regarding it 738 acres of brownfield potential. The area is now populated with derelict buildings and abandoned vehicles. The property has issues with battery acid, lead paint, jet fuel, chloroform and DDT that were dumped or spilled there while the Navy occupied it. The question of who cleans the place up is in dispute.
One week ago, City Hall's Planning & Urban Design department began to look for firms qualified to draw up a master plan for the former Naval Air Station. Finding them should not be a problem: Friday afternoon, representatives from about 20 firms attended a City Hall meeting about what Dallas wants in a master plan.
Thursday I asked Peer Chacko, Dallas' chief planning officer, why now — after all these decades of waiting and wishing and wanting — has the city decided to make something out of all that nothing. "I guess timing is everything," he said.
By which he means Hensley Field is now considered an Opportunity Zone, an "economically distressed" place where incentives are available to investors willing to invest 90 percent of the capital gains that should have gone to the IRS. The feds created Opportunity Zones when they passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act two years ago. And from a list submitted by city officials across the state — among them Mayor Mike Rawlings — Gov. Greg Abbott chose the census tracts in Texas that qualified for such investments.
Read More
