It seems like a match made in urban planning heaven. Most metro areas have an abundance of underperforming retail property, such as half-vacant shopping centers, and a shortage of housing that average Texans can afford. Turn that retail into housing, and voila, two problems solved at once.

But no complicated problem has such an easy fix. The North Texas growth juggernaut means that burgeoning exurbs need additional retail space even as dilapidated strip centers plague core cities and older suburbs. Some homeowners may fear and fight plans for new, higher-density housing near them, even when it replaces obsolete shopping centers.

Yet reinvigorating or repurposing underused commercial property can improve a neighborhood’s quality of life while also adding value to a city’s property tax base. That new revenue is especially important because state lawmakers have been keen to limit homeowners’ property taxes. Responsible city leaders need to grow other parts of the tax base just to keep up with the increasing cost of providing public services and maintaining aging infrastructure.

What North Texas needs is a variety of tactics to address these related issues: streamlined rezoning, public incentives to redevelop infrastructure, increased public education about budget issues, and a greater tolerance for change. Fading retail centers can be revitalized in ways that preserve their original use or transform them into something totally different, such as housing. It just takes determination, money and imagination.

Retail abundance

Dallas-Fort Worth has about 200 million square feet of retail space, and it’s about 95% to 97% occupied, said Steve Zimmerman, managing director of the brokerage group at The Retail Connection. Colliers, a real estate services and investment management firm, reported in August that retail rents here have been rising about 4% annually. Those statistics suggest that retail space isn’t severely overbuilt.

But not all retail centers are full of high-performing, high-value businesses. Aging strip centers tend to attract vape shops, nail salons, pay-day lenders, check-cashers, doughnut shops and vacancies; their capacious parking lots remain mostly empty. Those underutilized properties don’t enhance nearby neighborhoods or the tax base as much as busy, attractive retail centers would.

Last year, the Texas Legislature created a new tool to help redevelop commercial properties. Known as Senate Bill 840, the law forces large cities in urban counties to allow multifamily and mixed-use residential development on commercial, office, warehouse or retail property without a zoning change.

SB 840 is meant to encourage developers to transform bleak, underperforming retail spaces into badly needed housing. For example, it might have prevented the fight over Pepper Square in Far North Dallas.

That shopping center languished while the developer and nearby residents sparred in a bitter and protracted rezoning dispute. It is a prime example of how local government processes and NIMBYism make it hard to redevelop in Dallas.

But implementing the new law has been more complicated than we’d hoped. For starters, some North Texas suburbs reworked their zoning code to try to sidestep the new rules.

Irving, for example, set an eight-story minimum height requirement for new multifamily or mixed-use residential development — much taller than what’s typical in the area. Frisco pulled a different trick. Senate Bill 840 exempts industrial areas, so Frisco changed its zoning code to permit heavy industry in commercial zones.

Market conditions also may be slowing commercial-to-residential redevelopment. Our newsroom colleague, Nick Wooten, reported in November that there is a temporary over-supply of apartments in Dallas, fueled by a construction boom and a stream of remote workers in the post-COVID years.

(Unfortunately, that oversupply hasn’t made rent much cheaper. Even if a lease is relatively inexpensive, there are plenty of added costs, like electricity and Wi-Fi. Plus, building managers often nickel-and-dime residents with mandatory fees for trash collection, parking lot security gates, parcel lockers, pets and on and on.)

The temporary situation doesn’t erase the region’s long-term shortage of lower-cost homes. We need SB 840 to work because we need a larger, more diverse stock of housing, including multifamily and townhomes, across the entire region. With a more generous supply of all types of homes, both rental and owned, housing costs should eventually decline.

More options for faded retail

Senate Bill 840 is only one strategy for remaking forlorn retail properties into something more useful and valuable. Some creative owners, managers and public officials have found ways to maintain a property’s retail orientation while adding unique experiences and features.

Carrollton updated design standards and established a “Retail Rehabilitation Performance Grant Program” to encourage property owners to reinvest in underutilized retail centers. One notable success: Carrollton Town Center, where occupancy had dipped to 20% more than a decade ago, according to a story in PM Magazine. Now it is a bustling, walkable, Asian-focused retail and restaurant destination.

Hillcrest Village in Far North Dallas is part of an entire block of aging retail along Arapaho Road. A public-private partnership transformed a parking lot into the “Hillcrest Village Green,” a 1.5-acre expanse of turf with a playground at one end. Restaurants with oversize patios overlook the city-owned greenspace.

Local developer Monte Anderson, a champion of “incremental redevelopment,” is remaking the Wheatland Plaza shopping center in Duncanville. He’s reworking interior spaces and reclaiming some of the parking lot for food trucks, new landscaping, and eventually, a dozen for-sale townhomes built with Dallas Area Habitat for Humanity.

Cities can speed retail redevelopment with small and large incentive programs. Retail properties typically don’t have the utility infrastructure needed for housing; grants and revolving, low-interest loan funds can help residential developers keep costs down so their end product is more affordable. Elected officials need to help constituents understand why most cities need denser, higher-value redevelopment to keep tax rates lower.

D-FW has matured into a metropolis with a vibrant, diversified economy. To accommodate population growth, cities can’t ignore languishing commercial property, or allow only one type of new housing, or permit property tax bases to stagnate. By tackling all three issues at once, they can lay the foundation for a more prosperous future.

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Nearly 200 people gathered Saturday evening for a “No War With Venezuela” protest in downtown Dallas, mere hours after U.S. President Donald Trump carried out the most assertive American action for regime change since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Following months of secret planning, Trump said Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were captured early Saturday at their home on a military base.

During a news conference, Trump revealed his plans to exploit the leadership void to “fix” the country’s oil infrastructure and sell “large amounts” of oil to other countries.

Trump said the U.S. would run Venezuela until a transition of power takes place, though it remains unclear how the U.S. would assume control.

In Dallas’ Main Street Garden Park, signs reading “U.S. hands off Venezuela” were met with honks by passing vehicles as participants chanted: “Venezuela isn’t yours, no more coups, no more wars. We know what we’re fighting for, not another endless war.”

“We are gathered here today because injustice has crossed another line,” Zeeshan Hafeez, a Democratic primary candidate for Texas’ Congressional District 33, said as he addressed the crowd. “This is not just about Venezuela. This is not just about Gaza.

“This is about whether America will be ruled by law or force.”

Rick Majumdar, a member of Freedom Road Socialist Organization Dallas, told The Dallas Morning News that the message of Saturday’s collective action was simple: “We don’t want the United States to go to another war for oil.”

“The people of the United States should stand in solidarity with the people of Venezuela, as well as stand against the oppression that is happening to immigrants in this country,” Majumdar said. “Stand in solidarity with both Venezuelans in the United States and those in Venezuela.”

Related

Maduro and his wife landed Saturday afternoon in New York to face prosecution for a Justice Department indictment accusing them of participating in a narco-terrorism conspiracy. The indictment painted the regime as a “corrupt, illegitimate government” fueled by a drug trafficking operation that flooded the U.S with cocaine.

Lawmakers from both political parties have previously raised both profound reservations and flat-out objections to U.S. attacks on boats suspected of drug smuggling near the Venezuelan coast.

Congress has not specifically authorized the use of military force for such operations in the region, and leaders said they were not notified of the plan to seize Maduro until it was already underway.

“I’m appalled that we broke a law and decided that we can invade a country and capture their leader,” said Cynthia Ball, of Amarillo, at the Dallas protest. “Normal citizens like ourselves can’t do a lot at a governmental level, but if we band together and stay informed, hopefully we can get our city to see what’s happening.”

Other officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, supported the move, explaining the secretive nature was necessary to preserve the operation’s integrity. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, called it a “decisive and justified operation that will protect American lives”

Venezuela’s vice president has demanded the U.S. free Maduro and called him the country’s rightful leader.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Carla Rockmore has 1.3 million followers on TikTok and her own fashion line, but there was a time when she was just another carpool mom in North Dallas, wondering what happened to her dreams. “It was challenging,” she says. “The guard at school would tell me I couldn’t idle the car in line while waiting to pick up my kids. What are you talking about? It’s 110 degrees!”

A Montreal native, Rockmore enjoyed a globe-trotting early career, leaving fashion school in Toronto for a couture house in Amsterdam. After returning to Canada, she toggled between corporate and boutique gigs, but motherhood meant slowing down. In 2012, her family moved to Dallas so her husband, Michael Stitt, could become CEO of the menswear brand Haggar Clothing, but Rockmore struggled to find industry work in Texas.

Fashion is about transformation, though, and Rockmore underwent a dramatic one. In March 2020, she was in India working to launch her own jewelry line when the pandemic hit, and she had to come home. Frustrated and looking for escape under quarantine, she started making videos in her closet, part practical stylist advice, part creative riff. She was a natural on camera, with her dark spiraling hair and outsize personality, trying on outfits that ranged from classy to wacky. “It was a convergence of my education and talent, my need to be in front of a stage and a void in the market,” she says. She became a social media phenomenon.

Architectural Digest has featured the closet in her Preston Hollow home, a two-story Narnia of color, spangle and swish so expansive it includes a spiral staircase and fireplace. But the real lure of her videos is a 50-something woman taking delight in the art of dressing up. “Our media don’t show us so many examples of women this age who know who they are and clearly like it,” New York Times Magazine said about Rockmore.

Now 58, Rockmore has a line of clothes on her website as well as through QVC. Many of her videos these days feature Ivy, the 21-year-old daughter whose gender transition became part of the tale, bringing new meaning to Rockmore’s TikTok slogan of self-expression through fashion. (Her 24-year-old son, Eli, helps behind the scenes.) I spoke with Rockmore over the phone, where she was as charming as she is in her videos.

This is a first for me. In researching the clothes on your website, I actually bought the wrap shirt dress in marigold. I haven’t even started this interview, and I’m already out $55.

Ooh, you did? I love it! That dress is sort of the ethos of my design, where clothing is your canvas, and jewelry and accessories are your paint. You can dress it up however you want. I think color is one of my fortes, because my mom was a painter. Proportion, color and shape were dinner conversation.

I’m not much of a trend person. I’m more like, “I love it, now I’m going to wear versions of it for the rest of my life.”

How do you describe Dallas to people who have never been here?

Dallas is a strange juxtaposition. On the good side, you have some of the nicest people in the world. Being a Northeastern girl, I was completely floored when I moved to a place where people strike up conversations in line at the coffee shop. I kept looking over my shoulder thinking, What’s happening? What’s the ulterior motive? But it never came. They’re just genuinely nice.

The downside is that every strip mall looks exactly the same. I once got lost driving around a strip mall in Plano because I thought I was in Preston Hollow. Same Chico’s, same Starbucks. And everyone drives everywhere. I once tried to walk a single block, from Elements on Lovers near the Tollway to my chiropractor across the street, and while I was walking along the underpass, a woman pulled over and asked, “Are you OK, dear?” I said, “I’m just walking,” and she looked at me like I’d completely lost my mind.

How do you describe Dallas fashion?

Hidden. There’s incredible fashion here, but it doesn’t announce itself. It’s not going to smack you in the face, and I think that’s because Dallas isn’t a walking city. I’m always floored when I go to Forty Five Ten or to the downtown Neiman’s. Fashion here is a destination. You have to go to the restaurant, the party, the bar, and when you do — you will see it.

And no matter where I am, I could be going to the doctor for a physical, if I’m wearing a great pair of shoes, another woman will inevitably stop me and say, “Those shoes! Where did you get them?” That’s a kind of sisterhood. In New York, nobody ever asks about your shoes.

You went viral for putting outfits together, something others might find frivolous. Can you make the pitch that fashion matters?

Fashion matters, because it’s a declaration of how you’re feeling without words. It’s also a barometer of what’s going on in the world. I find fashion history so fascinating, why certain pieces of clothing were adopted at certain times.

In the 1910s, hobble skirts restricted women’s movement so completely that in cities like New York and Vancouver, they lowered the streetcars to allow women to get in and out. By mid-century, the story had flipped: Cars and fenders echoed the streamlined silhouette of the pencil skirt popularized by Christian Dior. From hoop skirts to hobble hems to pencil skirts, fashion has always shaped how we move, what we build and how the world makes room for us.

The closet gets used as a metaphor for repression, staying “in the closet,” but your closet has been an engine of self-discovery. Eventually, this became true in your own family, too. Can you talk about how Ivy started joining you in the videos?

Ivy was there from the beginning, because I was doing 10-minute videos on YouTube for my girlfriends up in Canada. I had 91 followers, and I was happy about that! The only reason I blew up was because Ivy said, let’s take it down to a minute and put this on TikTok.

Then Ivy came to me crying one day. Actually, we were in the closet. She said, “I don’t think I’m gay. I think I’m trans.” I felt so bad for her, because she said, “I’m so tired of coming out, Mom. I’m so tired of not being who I am.” At that point, I still naively thought it was a choice, and I was so afraid she was choosing a harder path. But I quickly decided, we’re going to support, full-force. About a week later, she and I did our first video together, because I wanted her to feel not only accepted by her family but also pretty, feminine — all those qualities she’d been craving for the first 17 years of her life. I wanted her to catch up to herself.

I thought, I don’t know if there are a lot of other parents in this situation, but maybe the benefit of my platform is we can show a “normal” family — then again, what’s normal? — modeling what it’s like to accept your child no matter who they are. Sometimes I feel like that’s the whole reason I went viral. Not for my fashion, not for my self-expression. For hers.

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