Dallas bonds would fund arts, libraries and parks
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Dallas city leaders want more of this. Photo: Cooper Neill/Bloomberg via Getty Images
More than $460 million of the $1.25 billion in Dallas' proposed bonds are earmarked for improving parks, updating cultural arts centers and building replacement libraries.
Why it matters: The bond proposal goes beyond basic city functions like public safety and smooth roads.
- City leaders have prioritized increasing residents' access to green spaces and recreational activities.
- Voters will weigh in starting April 22, when early voting starts. Election day is May 4.
State of play: The bond propositions could fund long-imagined projects such as preserving wetlands and adding a park by the Dallas Zoo.
- Aging library facilities would be replaced and new skateparks would be built.
📚 Libraries: The $43.5 million in Proposition D would make the city's libraries ADA compliant.
- About $32 million would go toward building two new 18,000-square-foot facilities to replace the North Oak Cliff Branch Library near Bishop Arts and the Park Forest Branch Library.
🎭 Arts facilities: The $75.2 million in Proposition E would fix heating and cooling systems, improve ADA compliance and replace the roofs at many of the city's performing arts centers.
- The most funding — $20 million — would go toward installing temperature and humidity controls, exhaust systems and a fire suppression system at the Dallas Museum of Art.
🌳 Parks and recreation: Proposition B would put $343.5 million toward expanding green spaces and building new recreational centers throughout Dallas.
- $17.6 million would build a recreation center on city-owned land adjacent to the newly opened White Rock Hills Park.
- $30 million would build a safari trail habitat and fund other upgrades at the Dallas Zoo.
- $17.6 million would build a new Exall Park Recreation Center near downtown.
Of note: The bond propositions include matching funds for some key city projects, including $15 million toward Southern Gateway Park over Interstate 35 near the zoo and $3 million to Dallas Water Commons, the wetlands restoration project.
Fun fact: $20 million of the parks bond money could go toward dredging White Rock Lake. The lake has been cleaned out four times and was last dredged in 1998.
- The project would make the water clearer and cleaner.