The federal government is sending nearly $10.5 million to North Texas and over half of the dollars are allocated for projects in Dallas.
U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, announced Wednesday that a House appropriations bill would provide funding for 11 projects in District 30, which includes southern and west Dallas, Grand Prairie, Arlington, Cedar Hill, Duncanville, DeSoto, and Lancaster.
Six Dallas projects received a cumulative $5.8 million, which Crockett described as being “truly transformational” for their communities. Those include rehabilitating the aging Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center in South Dallas; a new resource center to serve the Bonton neighborhood, which will be operated by Bonton Farms; new parks in South Oak Cliff and at Fair Park; money to redevelop a YMCA; and a center at UNT Dallas for attorneys to provide free legal aid to residents.
The Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center received $2.5 million in federal funding. In documentation provided with the earmark request, the city outlines plans to improve the center, which serves more than 300,000 Dallas residents annually across its five-building campus. The center acts as a community hub and event space, as well as polling place.
The existing facility opened in 1969 and has evolved to be the access point for residents to get affordable healthcare, library services, child care, rental assistance, home repairs, and more. It’s also the office space for several community organizations, such as the Dallas Black Chamber of Commerce, the Dallas Civil Rights Museum, and Miles of Freedom.
The federal money will go toward an overhaul of the interior of the main building by improving accessibility and adding a teaching kitchen, an enhanced computer lab, more storage, and restaurant infrastructure. It will also reconfigure conference and meeting spaces to provide more flexibility. The city wants to expand an existing facility or build a new one to provide clinic facilities for mental health and WIC services.
“The Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Center is the heart of the Fair Park community, providing all ages recreational and cultural amenities, critical nutrition, housing, and childcare services, and space for civic and nonprofit organizations,” the city explained in its appropriations requisition. “We all love the MLK Community Center, but that love has put a lot of wear and tear on the facility.”
Just down the street, a new 18-acre community park received $850,000. Fair Park First, the nonprofit tasked with restoring and revitalizing the 277-acre Fair Park fairgrounds where the park will sit, will oversee construction of a new community park on top of what is presently a parking lot.
“We could not be more thankful to Congresswoman Crockett for supporting the community and the development of the Community Park at Fair Park,” Fair Park First CEO Brian Luallen said. “This investment will continue to fund the park, and provide 15-minute walking access for 13 surrounding neighborhoods in the district.”
Last September, Luallen told the city’s Park and Recreation Board that about $22.5 million of the $67 million needed to build the park had been raised so far, or roughly 34 percent. He said the park would break ground when the project raises 50 percent of its goal.
This week, the Park and Recreation Board approved an application seeking another $10 million from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership Grant program for the park’s second phase.
Bonton Farms will receive $600,000 towards its 2,000-square-foot Bexar Street resource center. Gabe Madison, the organization’s CEO, says that the new center will support Bonton residents and apprentices in the program’s new workforce development program. Bonton Farms has been working with the Texas Irish Foundation and other local organizations to complete the center.
“The new facility will be home to the only one-on-one counseling rooms in South Dallas, farm staff break room, bathrooms, office space, and entrepreneurial workspaces for our ‘Bontonpreneurs’ like the much beloved Kerry’s Bike Shop,” Madison said. “Kerry, a local entrepreneur, has been trained by Bike Friendly South Dallas to repair and rebuild bikes and will open a new business to provide bicycles to adults and children in our neighborhood.”
Judge Charles R. Rose Community Park, located in southern Dallas’ Highland Hills neighborhood, will also benefit from federal funds. Crockett said the Trust for Public Land will receive $500,000 to move the park forward. TPL state director Robert Kent said the park is part of the 17-mile Five Mile Creek Greenbelt trail project. (The entire Five Mile Greenbelt project will include three new parks and stretch east from near the Westmoreland DART station and into the Trinity Forest through South Oak Cliff.)
“This funding will help realize the Highland Hills community’s vision for their new park while creating opportunities for improved health, recreation, and neighborhood gatherings,” Kent said.
The University of North Texas at Dallas’ College of Law received $500,000 for its Community Lawyering Center, which provides free legal services to qualifying residents. The Park South Family YMCA will also get $850,0000 toward its ongoing renovation.
Projects in Lancaster, Grand Prairie, DeSoto, and Cedar Hill also received funding in this bill.
The money comes from the 2024 Consolidated Appropriations Act, the first fiscal year package of appropriations that funds community projects in several sectors, including agriculture, transportation, housing, commerce, justice, and science. It aligns with a top line agreement struck between Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Mike Johnson in January.
The bill passed out of the House Wednesday afternoon, and Schumer indicated Wednesday that the Senate will pass it before midnight on Friday. President Joe Biden is expected to sign it into law by the end of the week.
“These projects represent a foundational investment in the food security, infrastructure, and development of the under-resourced communities of TX-30, and I look forward to building on these investments for years to come,” Crockett said in a statement.
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Bethany Erickson is the senior digital editor for D Magazine. She’s written about real estate, education policy, the stock market, and crime throughout her career, and sometimes all at the same time. She hates lima beans and 5 a.m. and takes SAT practice tests for fun.
Dallas Cowboys defensive end Marshawn Kneeland tragically died at age 24 from an apparent suicide on Wednesday, two days after scoring his first NFL touchdown, prompting mourning across the league and raising awareness about mental health crises among athletes.
In the hands of Chris Wolston, even the most ordinary object — a chair, lamp or credenza — becomes something more whimsical, playful and quirky.
The artist has built a stellar reputation in the design world for his anthropomorphic rattan chairs (complete with bums and feet). Yet the array of pieces on display in his first solo museum show at Dallas Contemporary reveals there’s much more to his oeuvre.
Displayed across four catwalks, reminiscent of a fashion show or drag ball, are sculpted chairs in terra-cotta adorned with metal insects, a bronze coffee table cast from leaves found in the artist’s garden and chairs inspired by the gestural limbs of supermodels. Handwoven carpets from Morocco on the walls are interspersed with video works highlighting Wolston’s process filmed by his husband, the filmmaker David Sierra. Together, they recall a fantasy world of objects both functional and sculptural.
“I always find that through humor, there’s an interesting entry point for people — it breaks down a barrier,” says artist Chris Wolston. “And I was always drawn to furniture as a medium because it’s accessible, it’s egalitarian.” Dallas Contemporary
Wolston has been walking the tightrope between craft and art with a humorous twist since he made his first terra-cotta chairs in 2014. Drawn to the relationship between materiality and everyday life, he naturally embraced furniture as his medium.
“I started working with the (contemporary design gallery) The Future Perfect, and then we started doing these body chairs for a chair show,” he says. “I always find that through humor, there’s an interesting entry point for people — it breaks down a barrier. And I was always drawn to furniture as a medium because it’s accessible, it’s egalitarian.”
Having initially studied glassmaking at the Rhode Island School of Design, Wolston earned a Fulbright to study pre-Columbian ceramics in Colombia, prompting him to settle his studio in the city of Medellín. He found his entry point into raw ingredients by working with natural terra-cotta clay found in the mountains surrounding the city, and has since cycled through bronze, rattan, anodized aluminum and shearling.
Curated by Glenn Adamson, former director of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, Profile in Ecstasy highlights a decade-plus of work that led Wolston to discover the throughlines behind his various collections, whether they be nods to fashion and nature, Spanish modernism or subtle surrealism.
“These themes that exist in an artist’s practice emerge when a new collection emerges,” Wolston says. “It’s interesting to see how collections made at different times with totally different materials and thought processes at play resonate with one another.”
Chris Wolston: Profile in Ecstasy is on view at Dallas Contemporary from Nov. 7 through Feb. 1, 2026.
The vehicle belonging to a Dallas woman who has been missing for over a year was found this week, according to police.
The Dallas Police Department said 88-year-old Myrtle Polk’s vehicle was found in the 5600 block of South Lancaster Road, near Five Mile Creek, on Tuesday. Her body was not in the vehicle.
DPD said search teams will deploy in the area to continue the search for Polk.
She was last seen in early June along Indian Creek Trail, driving her Lexus sedan. At the time, a Silver Alert was issued, given her age and medical history, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Polk is a devout member of her church, according to her family. When she didn’t show up for service on June 9, 2024, they said they knew something was wrong.
Also affectionately known as “Mama M” or “Aunt Myrt,” Polk is living with dementia. But her niece Tawana Watson said — as late as the day before — the family did not indicate that anything was wrong.
“She was a very good driver, she knew where she was,” Watson said last June. “I talked to her that Friday [and] she was in her right mind.”
Watson does not believe the matriarch left home on her own.
“She was such a trustworthy person, I believe that Aunt Myrtle met somebody that she trusted, she let them [into her home] and they hurt her,” she continued.
Myrtle Polk is approximately 5-foot-2 and 120 pounds, with white hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information is asked to call 911 or the Dallas Police Department at (214) 671-4268.
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