Mixed Use News

City of Dallas gives U.S. Navy a legal nudge to clean up Hensley Field

One day, Hensley Field will be a mixed-use development.

Courtesy rendering

The city of Dallas is ready to develop Hensley Field, a former naval air station, into a mixed-use community, but needs the Navy to finish cleaning it up.

According to a release, on August 2, 2023, the city initiated legal proceedings to ensure it can move forward with a plan to develop the former U.S. Naval Air Station at Hensley Field, including residential, retail, and parks.

But before it can do that, an environmental remediation of the property must be completed.

The U.S. Navy leased Hensley Field, which sits on more than 700 acres of largely undeveloped land on the border of Dallas and Grand Prairie, from the city of Dallas in 1949 to operate the Naval Air Station Dallas. Fifty years later, the Navy closed Naval Air Station Dallas in 1999 and returned the property to the city - unfortunately with the kind of environmental contamination common to U.S. military installations.

The City filed a lawsuit in 2001 over the environmental concerns and reached a settlement agreement in 2002, whereby the Navy was supposed to complete remediation of the environmental concerns at Hensley Field by late 2017.

That deadline was not met.

The release says that the Navy has made progress. The city just needs the Navy to complete the remediation.

The city's goal is to keep working with the Navy to come to an amicable resolution ensuring that the Navy fulfills its obligations and meets the remediation standards necessary for the redevelopment plan to be implemented.

"We appreciate all of the U.S. Navy’s efforts to remediate the site for the past 20 years," says Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax in a statement. "We are confident that we can reach an agreement on the final phase of the project that ensures Hensley Field can be safely developed into a premier community offering mixed income housing, recreation, commercial space, and more. We will continue these productive discussions with the U.S. Navy and remain focused on reaching a consensual agreement."

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No Cap

Dallas was a top-10 destination for Gen Zers on the move for 2023

Photo by Lance Asper on Unsplash

Who wouldn't want to live in a Gen Z paradise like Dallas?

As Gen Z enters adulthood, many are flocking to the nation's biggest cultural hubs like New York City, Los Angeles — and now Dallas, which had the ninth-highest inflow of Gen Zers in 2023.

Dallas' new reputation as a Gen Z hotspot was unveiled in a recent report by American home improvement brand This Old House, which analyzed migration trends across multiple generations using 2023 U.S. Census Bureau data.

Dallas saw an influx of 13,770 Gen Z residents last year to become the generation's No. 9 most popular city. That's 4,223 more Gen Zers than the net migration rate from 2022, the report found.

Real estate marketplace Zillow seems to agree on a statewide scale, declaring Texas as the No. 1 destination for Gen Zers on the move in 2024.

However, as Gen Z Dallasites may have learned, it's going to take a big bite out of their paychecks to live in such a highly sought after city. A March RentCafe housing cost analysis predicted Gen Z adults living in Dallas are likely to spend over $149,000 on rent by the time they are 30 years old.

While Dallas saw big gains in its Gen Z population last year, many other big cities saw a mass exodus. Plano, for example — which gained 1,295 Gen Z residents in 2022 — lost 4,028 Gen Zers in 2023, the report discovered.

The biggest Gen-Z exodus was in El Paso, with a drop of 5,607 — "a sharp turn from 2022 when the city saw an increase," the report said. "Other cities, including Plano, Texas; Memphis, Tennessee; McKinney, Texas; and Wichita, Kansas, are seeing similar declines."

"Gen X, baby boomers, and the Silent Generation are also moving away from major cities, particularly New York City and Washington, D.C.," the report said. "They’re heading to some of the same cities as Gen Z, including Houston and Jacksonville, Florida."

The top 10 cities that gained the most Gen Z residents in 2023 are:

No. 1 – New York City, New York
No. 2 – Los Angeles, California
No. 3 – Houston, Texas
No. 4 – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
No. 5 – Chicago, Illinois
No. 6 – San Diego, California
No. 7 – Seattle, Washington
No. 8 – Charlotte, North Carolina
No. 9 – Dallas, Texas
No. 10 – Minneapolis, Minnesota

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