City News

New project coming to old Collin Creek Mall Plano and more Dallas news

Prototypical entrance of Collin Creek Mall in Plano.

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This compilation of Dallas news, right before the holiday lull, is jam-packed and includes updates on the so-called Shingle Mountain, evictions in Dallas, a major mall in Plano, and a holy ceremony hosted by DART to usher in a new rail line.

Here's what happened in Dallas this week:

Shingle Mountain
After nearly two years of litigation, the city was allowed to begin removing "Shingle Mountain," 98,000 tons of abandoned asphalt shingles at 9500 S. Central Expwy. According to a release, Roberts Trucking will move the shingle material to McCommas Bluff Landfill, which plans to recycle it. The removal is being supervised by Modern Geosciences to address environmental concerns, and is anticipated to be complete by the end of March 2021.

The city remains in litigation with the Blue Star Recycling, the company that put the shingles there in the first place.

Eviction Initiative
The City of Dallas Office of Equity and Inclusion, in partnership with Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas, is reminding residents of the Dallas Eviction Assistance Initiative program, which consists of education, training, and legal representation to Dallas renters who are negatively impacted by COVID-19 and cannot pay rent to remain in their homes.

The reminder comes because the federal moratorium on evictions comes to an end on December 31. But Dallas' program continues into 2021.

Eligibility requirements include:

Must live in Dallas
Must be at or below 200 percent of federal poverty guidelines
Must be negatively impacted by COVID-19

Apply for assistance by calling the Northwest Texas Legal Aid hotline at 1-888-529-5277 or visiting www.lanwt.org.

Collin Creek Mall
At its December 8 meeting, Plano's Planning and Zoning Commission approved a plan to take a plot of land along Alma Drive at Collin Creek Mall previously designated for a new JCPenney store and allow the owner to build apartments instead.

The owner is mega-developer Centurion American, aka Mehrdad Moayedi (Statler Dallas hotel, Braniff hotel), who wants to build up to 300 independent living units for seniors as well as up to 2,300 multifamily units. It's now up to the Plano City Council to sign off.

Demolition of the original Collin Creek Mall began in 2019. It'll be replaced by up to 3,100 new residential units, office, restaurants, and hotel.

Expand DISD teacher profile
Dallas ISD is partnering with the University of North Texas Dallas in an effort to recruit more males of color to teaching as a profession. It gives Dallas ISD students the opportunity after graduation to attend UNT Dallas and come back fully certified to teach at Dallas ISD schools. "Research shows that students who have teachers that look like them have higher rates of success," says John Vega, a deputy chief at DISD. Schools that are part of the program include Sunset High School, W.T. White High School, W.W. Samuel High School, and Lincoln High School, with Bryan Adams High School coming on board in fall 2021.

DART's holy incantation
Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) and Archer Western Herzog (AWH) commemorated construction of the future Silver Line Regional Rail project with a "First Concrete Ceremony" on December 16. The event took place near the intersection of Preston Road and the Keller Springs Road, a mile northeast of the future Knoll Trail Station in Dallas.

According to a release, the ceremony included a long-held tradition by the Walsh Group, parent company of AWH, of placing "Miraculous Medals" in a project's first concrete pour. This is a Walsh Group tradition for more than six decades, so don't even think about not doing it. Cue the Gregorian chanting:

"The Miraculous Medal is an oval-shaped depiction of Mary according to Saint Catherine Laboure's vision. The gesture of placing Miraculous Medals symbolizes an inspiration to successfully complete the job safely and to make it as miraculous as the Medal itself."

The $1.2 billion Silver Line will be a 26-mile project crossing seven cities between DFW Airport, Grapevine, Coppell, Dallas, Carrollton, Addison, Richardson and Plano, and includes 10 new stations. It's scheduled to debut in 2023 — and now with Mary's blessing.

Planting trees
Dallas developer Crow Holdings, in partnership with the Texas Trees Foundation and the City of Dallas, planted 50 trees at Dallas' Walnut Hill Park at 10011 Midway Rd. on December 4.

"The destruction from last year's tornado to the tree canopy transformed neighborhoods and parks, but not for the good. More than 700 mature trees were lost at Dallas city parks in 2019, and it would take 5,200 new trees to replace them. Thanks to Crow Holdings, we are 100 trees closer to reaching our goal," said Janette Monear, CEO at the Texas Trees Foundation.

US attorney resigns
Erin Nealy Cox, U.S. Attorney for the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, is resigning from the Department of Justice. She was appointed by Donald Trump and had been in that office since November 2017. Some of her high-profile cases include corruption charges against former Dallas City Council members Dwaine Caraway and Carolyn Davis, and Larry Duncan, former board president of Dallas County Schools.

Her last day will be January 8, 2021; gotta get those holiday benefits. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Prerak Shah will assume the role of Acting U.S. Attorney.

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cattle concerns

Flesh-eating screwworm fly detected in Texas for first time since 1966

Photo courtesy of Texas A&M AgriLife

This little fly can do a lot of damage

The New World screwworm fly has reached south Texas, the U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed June 3, the first time in decades that the parasite with flesh-eating larvae has threatened the nation's cattle industry and only the third time it's appeared in the U.S. in that time.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the case was in a 3-week-old calf in La Pryor, Texas, about 50 miles from the Mexico border. Texas State Veterinarian Bud Dinges said he has established a 12-mile quarantine zone, prohibiting the movement of any warm-blooded animal — including pets — outside that zone without an inspection.

Rollins said there have been no other detections of the fly in the U.S., and officials were quick to say that while the fly’s larvae are a threat to livestock production, they don’t infest food. Properly treated, even the infested calf should recover, Rollins said.

Rollins, U.S. and Texas agriculture officials, and cattle industry leaders have been sounding public alarms about the fly’s movement across Mexico for more than a year, spurred on by memories of it causing tens of millions of dollars of losses — potentially billions in today’s dollars — before its eradication in the 1970s.

It is the first case confirmed in Texas since 1966, Rollins said.

The months of effort to keep the fly out of the U.S. have included dropping millions of sterile screwworm flies in the area to mate with wild females — the same method used successfully before the fly was eradicated. Rollins said the USDA is confident enough in its preparations that it believes “there is no threat of mass infestation.”

“There is no reason to believe this incursion will result in establishment of the pest in our country," Rollins said.

The announcement of the suspected case comes only a day after Rollins had an online news conference to highlight the nearness of the threat, with cases being confirmed in Mexico as close as 25 miles from the border — and to outline the USDA's efforts to combat it.

The New World Screwworm fly is a tropical species that decades ago infested cattle in warm weather across the southern United States, but it was contained in Panama until late in 2024.

The female fly lays its eggs in open wounds or mucous membranes and they hatch into larvae that eat flesh — making them unlike most fly species — and can infest livestock, wild mammals, household pets and even humans. Infestations can lead to death if left untreated.

In August 2025, federal health officials confirmed a case in a Maryland resident who had traveled to El Salvador, but the victim recovered and officials found no transmission of the parasite. Before that, the last outbreak was in the Florida Keys in September 2016, mostly among wild deer, and it was contained early the next year without spreading further.

The female flies mate once in their monthslong lives, and if they do so with a sterile fly, their eggs would not hatch — and the population would die out over time. Past eradication efforts were so successful that the U.S. shut down facilities for breeding sterile flies, leaving only one in Panama for decades.

That is changing. The USDA dedicated $21 million to convert a fruit-fly breeding facility in southern Mexico into one for breeding screwworm flies, opened a new center for dispersing sterile flies bred elsewhere in southern Texas and has started construction on a $750 million screwworm fly factory there. The breeding facility in Mexico should be operating next month, Rollins said.

Officials also deployed 8,000 fly traps along the U.S.-Mexico border, and Rollins said the USDA has tested more than 58,000 fly samples, along with 19,000 wild animals.

Rollins also closed the U.S.-Mexico border last year to livestock imports from Mexico, a decision she defended during her news conference Tuesday. The fly also can travel with people and their pets and with wild animals, officials noted, but Rollins stressed Wednesday evening that it doesn't fly great distances on its own.

Dinges said ranchers and pet owners need to understand that it's important to respect the quarantine zone.

“Please help us prevent any further movement of this pest by staying put,” he said.

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