Editorial: A vision needed for UNT-Dallas

[Harry]

Ask Dallas City Council member Tennell Atkins about his vision for the area surrounding the University of North Texas at Dallas, and he’ll tell you about Hillcrest Road and the strip of shopping, restaurants and student life near the SMU campus.

It’s not a far-fetched vision for the city’s first four-year public university, located near Camp Wisdom Road and Interstate 20 in southern Dallas. The 265-acre campus is surrounded by 3,500 acres of commercially desirable land, one of the last remaining major concentrations of vacant parcels in Dallas. That’s why it is a centerpiece of Mayor Mike Rawlings’ GrowSouth initiative to improve the quality of life and the tax base in the southern half of the city.

Given the right impetus, this attractive opportunity is sure to attract residential and commercial developers. That hasn’t happened so far, largely because of the city’s snail-like pace in rezoning land and making other improvements that would ready the area for growth. For the most part, City Hall insists on waiting for developers to come to it with projects instead of aggressively taking steps that would encourage development.

If the city doesn’t change that approach, progress in the UNT-Dallas area will continue to be tortuously slow.

Read more: http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/20120615-editorial-a-vision-needed-for-unt-dallas.ece

[GreenGuy123]

This is somewhat unrelated, but...I know may were pretty mad when the UNT System offices moved from Denton to Dallas. But yesterday, I was driving through downtown on Commerce, I look to my left, and I see a gigantic UNT System sign on the side a building. I must say it looks pretty nice in the heart of Downtown Dallas. Felt pretttttaayyyyy proud.