November 15 the Deep Ellum Foundation hosted the second meeting with NCTCOG on how best to renovated the Deep Ellum area. The “stakeholders” (buildling owners & real estate developers) were invited and the Deep Ellum Association heard about it so we showed up to see what it is all about. Mostly it was a bunch of talk about infrastructure, building schools in the area and generally good things.

It does seem a bit paternal having the DEF meet with the COG people with no input from local business, but the this organization will be infusing money and they seem very sincere in their efforts. The single issue that concerns me is the lack of any reference to the historic nature of the area. If we have new mixed use properties in Deep Ellum that look identical to Mockingbird Station, West Village and the new one they are building off Oak Lawn, then there will be no differentiation between the areas and a price-war will ensue between these residential districts.

I could ramble on, but their conclusions can be found here:
http://www.nctcog.org/trans/sustdev/landuse/funding/DeepEllumTOD.asp