Progress
On Friday, downtown Dallas passed a milestone in its struggle to move from being a fake city to a real one --- it opened a downtown grocery store. I'm sorry, but if you can't buy a gallon of milk in a major urban area, something is incredibly wrong.
So I stopped in the Urban Market. It's in the old Interurban Building --- a structure that was built around 1919 and used to be the central station for Dallas' long defunct trolley system. I used to park in this building. It was completely bombed out structure, home to cars and homeless people. A year later it's a brand spanking new grocery store. It's actually kind of unbelievable. The beer and wine section is located on the exact spot where I used to park my Mustang. So I bought some cocktail mixer to pay homage to my old parking spot.
The three block area where I work is also transitioning from skid row to swank. Two established boutique hotels are on this block, a high end loft is opening up, Neiman Marcus is on one end and a new restaurant called "Fuse" is on the other. I have high hopes for this area, all except maybe for Fuse. High toned restaurants with one name don't tend to last long in Dallas. The high toned people that dine at these places are fickle. There's always a new restaurant opening up in this town with one name like "Savor" or "Abacus" or "Taste". So clientele always abandoned the old one name restaurant and it closes.
But I hope the grocery store does well for a lot of reasons. It looks cool. And it's a lesson for the Walmarts and Albertsons of America that you can take a cool old building, restore it and better the neighborhood without destroying everything in your path by constructing a huge box with a massive parking lot.
So I stopped in the Urban Market. It's in the old Interurban Building --- a structure that was built around 1919 and used to be the central station for Dallas' long defunct trolley system. I used to park in this building. It was completely bombed out structure, home to cars and homeless people. A year later it's a brand spanking new grocery store. It's actually kind of unbelievable. The beer and wine section is located on the exact spot where I used to park my Mustang. So I bought some cocktail mixer to pay homage to my old parking spot.
The three block area where I work is also transitioning from skid row to swank. Two established boutique hotels are on this block, a high end loft is opening up, Neiman Marcus is on one end and a new restaurant called "Fuse" is on the other. I have high hopes for this area, all except maybe for Fuse. High toned restaurants with one name don't tend to last long in Dallas. The high toned people that dine at these places are fickle. There's always a new restaurant opening up in this town with one name like "Savor" or "Abacus" or "Taste". So clientele always abandoned the old one name restaurant and it closes.
But I hope the grocery store does well for a lot of reasons. It looks cool. And it's a lesson for the Walmarts and Albertsons of America that you can take a cool old building, restore it and better the neighborhood without destroying everything in your path by constructing a huge box with a massive parking lot.
posted by john clarke at 7:03 AM
4 Comments:
I am a huge fan of downtown progress. I think Fuse will fail. It probably has art food. I hope people will support the grocery store though. What is the parking situation like there?
There was an existing parking garage next to the grocery store. I think the store will validate your parking though. Otherwise, it only costs $3.50 to park. Oddly enough, I doubt many customers will even need to park to visit the store. They either already live within walking distance or work downtown and will stop by, like me, on the way home.
I support this, downtown has been looking too post apocalyptic for too long.
Hasn't happened yet. The Bravery won't grace Dallas until September 23. I had to look it up to make sure I hadn't missed it. Idlewild will at the same club four days earlier and for four dollars cheaper. I'll probably hit that one too. "All I need is a little discouragement."
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