Citizens of Dallas continue to lose historic buildings and places to demolition, neglect or abandonment. Historic resources are irreplaceable community assets that tell the story of the city’s development. Each year more of our city’s cultural history disappears!

As part of National Historic Preservation Month, Preservation Dallas announces its annual list of most endangered places. The list recognizes the many significant properties that make up our neighborhoods and reflect the lives of community leaders, important architects and builders, and the families who have made a home in Dallas. The 2005 list recalls the value of the city’s oldest neighborhoods, architectural styles and building types of rapidly disappearing residential architecture, churches important to the African American community and significant in the Civil Rights Movement, vintage businesses of the recent past, as well as important buildings in the central business district.

“We hope this list of endangered properties makes the citizens of Dallas aware of how many buildings we are losing. Preservation Dallas sees this list as an opportunity for all of us to be more thoughtful in how the city grows and develops.” said David Haedge, president of Preservation Dallas.

“This list is a roadmap for advocacy, education and development of programs in the preservation community that address the needs of these endangered properties.” stated Dwayne Jones, Executive Director of Preservation Dallas.

We are now soliciting nominations for the 2006 Endangered List. The Endangered List is a way to bring public attention to the potential loss of historic and architecturally significant buildings and places. This year I am encouraging you to look around carefully and think beyond the obvious to identify the potential loss of special places or environments. Many times we focus on the large historic buildings, but smaller, often-overlooked places, are equally important to the city.

For example, look at neighborhood landmarks, or parks and open spaces, threatened cultural icons, religious properties, entertainment venues, recreational sites, or important commercial or institutional buildings.

The 2005 list of Dallas’
Most Endangered Historic Places

Thomas Building

This handsome building remains in the central business district though its adjacent building, the Construction Building, will soon be demolished. The Thomas Building shortly will undergo a full feasibility study for its reuse.

Old Dallas High/Norman Crozier Technological High School
2218 Bryan Street

The work of architectural firm, Lang & Witchell, the last portion of the city’s oldest high school campus remains threatened with demolition by the owners. Purchased in 1996 by California-based investors, the 1907 and 1911 buildings are the earliest remaining 20th century school buildings in the city. The owners have appealed once again to a higher judicial body in order to overturn the City of Dallas Landmark designation in their ongoing effort to clear the full five acres of urban land. Crozier Tech hangs on by a thread while in good condition and with opportunities for rehabilitation being feasible.

UPDATE: In early March, the City of Dallas received notice that the final legal appeal of the Crozier Tech case (in the works for six years) was denied a hearing by the Texas Supreme Court. That’s a major victory where the city’s attorneys have led the effort to uphold lower court decisions supporting the city’s right to designate historic properties. This denial of appeal leaves the property owner with more incentive to sell the historic building now that the company has exhausted its legal remedies.

Milliner’s Supply Company Building
911 Elm

This c. 1880 historic building is one of the oldest surviving in the central business district. Milliner’s Supply, a wholesale/retail business for hats, moved into the building in 1925. Responsible long-term owners maintained the integrity of the building allowing customers to “step back in time” and experience early Dallas. Milliner’s is not protected from demolition with an historical designation, but it is eligible for local landmark status as well as listing in the National Register of Historic Places. This property is threatened by potential redevelopment at this site and its adjoining surface parking lot.

Awalt Buildings
807 Elm and 804-806 Pacific

The two buildings complete a set of historic buildings in the West End associated with the Awalt Furniture Company. The oldest building in the set is now rehabilitated, but these two buildings await rehabilitation while a fourth is already demolished. The Dallas Landmark Commission invoked the city’s demolition by neglect provision this past spring to encourage their stabilization. Although the buildings are not under immediate threat of demolition, the properties should be rehabilitated and made a stronger part of the central business district and until that occurs one or both may be recommended for demolition.

Mercantile National Bank Tower, 1700 Main

The Mercantile Tower is historically significant as the home of one of the top three financial institutions of the city as well as its association with former mayor and business leader, Robert L. Thornton. Walter Ahlschlager, a Chicago architect who relocated to Dallas, designed the original building as a modern monument of steel that received special dispensation to be built during World War II. The 1943 Mercantile maintains a critical place in the skyline of the city and is a well-regarded icon on the east end of the central business district. This building is part of several buildings on the block related to the Mercantile in later years that have been vacant since the 1980s. Despite recent promising efforts to rehabilitate and preserve the tower, these efforts have come to a halt and the building is in jeopardy once again. If no permanent solution is at hand and the buildings and the immediate area continue to decline, the demolition of the tower and other buildings may be imminent. The Mercantile Tower is threatened from redevelopment and remains as such until preservationists and leaders of the city and business community find creative solutions for reuse and rehabilitation.

6015 Bryan Parkway, Swiss Avenue Historic District

The house at 6015 Bryan Parkway remains on the list as the District Court decision is under appeal. The City Plan Commission approved demolition of the building after it overturned the Dallas Landmark Commission in January 2004. The c. 1915 house is an unusual Craftsman design that completes a virtually intact block face along Bryan Parkway. If the decision of the City Plan Commission remains in place, the owners intend to demolish the house and build a new speculative house on the lot. This demolition would mark the first demolition of a principal building in the Swiss Avenue Historic District, the city’s oldest district.

Lakewood Heights, bounded by Skillman, Abrams, Richmond and Monticello

Platted in 1914, the Lakewood Heights neighborhood encompasses more than 900 houses. Homeowners built these Craftsman bungalows and period revival houses mostly during 1930s. The neighborhood once known as a distinctive area with good quality housing is almost “ground zero” for teardowns in Dallas. This area is experiencing teardowns at a rate of two to three each week. At this pace, the neighborhood will be a mere reminder of a once thriving bungalow neighborhood. Lakewood Heights is endangered from continued redevelopment, teardowns and inappropriate new residential construction. This neighborhood is the leading example of why the city should adopt the proposed Neighborhood Stabilization Overlay Zone.

Historic Apartment Buildings, various locations

The Mary Apartments at 4524 Live Oak are an example of the once rich architectural forms of multi-family housing that existed in East Dallas. This complex, listed in the National Register of Historic Places, survives, but it is significantly and inappropriately altered. This building type, multi-family apartments, is typically two- to three-stories in height and constructed of brick. Many of these are being demolished or altered so that the architectural integrity is lost. Despite the loss of apartment buildings in East Dallas, developers in Oak Cliff and other areas of the city have found creative ways to preserve this special building type and make them valuable parts of the community.

James H. and Molly Ellis House, 2426 Pine Street

Constructed c. 1905, the Ellis House is one of the most interesting early 20th century buildings in South Dallas. In 1995 the National Park Services listed the property in the National Register of Historic Places for its significance in architecture and as part of a larger set of listed buildings in South and East Dallas. Since listing, ownership changed a number of times and the property continues to be on the City of Dallas’ docket of substandard houses. New owners purchased the property, but as for now; it is endangered from long-term neglect and vandalism.

Victorian Houses of the Cedars

Once a dense residential neighborhood in the late 19th century, the Cedars located just south of downtown now contains fewer than 20 Victorian houses in an area defined by R.L. Thornton Expressway and Forest Avenue that thirty years ago contained 64. These small, one-story frame dwellings exhibit all the decorative details familiar to Victorian houses including jig-sawn brackets, turned porch columns, fish scale shingles, and decorative windows and doors. A few of the houses are owner-occupied, but many are now rental properties. In the late 1970s, Preservation Dallas conducted an architectural survey of Victorian houses in the city and identified approximately 500 properties. We estimate that today fewer than 100 remain. These small Victorian houses are endangered from potential redevelopment and abandonment or neglect.

Residential Historic Districts of Southern Dallas

In 1992, the neighborhoods of Colonial Hill, Queen City, and Romine Avenue in South Dallas and Tenth Street in Oak Cliff appeared on an endangered list for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. These neighborhoods as well as Park Row in the South Boulevard/Park Row Historic District are threatened from demolition, neglect, vandalism and arson. The districts, all listed in the National Register of Historic Places, are important aspects of the development history of the southern sector of Dallas. Several of them have never been recognized as City of Dallas historic districts. If creative and strong intervention programs are not developed, we will lose these areas and contribute to the decline in the southern sector of the city.

Historic African American Churches

One of the strongest components of the traditional African American community is its churches. The valued institutions support neighborhoods, serve as community centers, and often are the location for invaluable outreach programs to citizens in need. Despite that, many of the historic church buildings are in need of assistance to stabilize and restore them for future generations of parishioners. Mt. Olive Lutheran Church, formerly Trinity English Lutheran Church constructed in 1925, is an important church in South Dallas with an active Food Bank. Located at 3100 Martin Luther King Boulevard, Mt. Olive is listed in the National Register of Historic Places for its significant architecture but also for its role in the local Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. It is now threatened from water penetration, vandalism and theft, and a deteriorating building. If the decline is allowed to continue, Mt. Olive may be lost as a landmark in the city.

POSTHUMOUS ENDANGERED BUILDING
North Dallas

Kip’s Big Boy Restaurant, formerly at Hillcrest and Northwest Highway

Better known as EZ’s, the 1964 Kip’s Big Boy restaurant became part of the candidates for the endangered list several months ago, but it was demolished recently despite requests to the owners to consider alternatives. Armet & Davis Architects of Southern California designed the building in what has become labeled “Googie” style for an early Dallas restaurateur, Fred Bell. Two other former Kip’s locations remain in the city. This property represents the continued loss of buildings from the recent past that are landmarks for citizens of all ages. Long-time Dallas residents may remember dining at the popular Kip’s Big Boy, while newcomers and young Dallas residents may recall the vintage interior and classic architecture from the postwar years that characterized the new business. These types of buildings are rapidly disappearing for more intensive or other roadside development. Whether of the recent past or the common roadside, buildings like Kip’s Big Boy are part of our cultural heritage and should live to tell that story for future generations. A new drive-in grocery with gasoline pumps may soon appear at this intersection.

Preservation Dallas is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to advocate for the preservation and revitalization of Dallas’ historic buildings, neighborhoods, and places in order to enhance the vitality of our city.

For more information, please contact Preservation Dallas, 214-821-3290.