Developers dared to dream up Lake Highlands Town Center after in the image of the “Turn of the 21st Century Gilded Age Model”. An early example is Mockingbird Station; the newest is Park Lane (which managed to open in spite of the un-planned economic bust).
Once again, here in Lake Highlands, we are left to wonder what will become of the latest developers’ “dream,” now that the business plan has surely changed. By the laws of nature, developers abhore a vacuum, and if they can’t get the tenants they love, they will cozy to the tenants they can get.
Now is the time for us, the residents, to dare to dream our dreams. Can it be possible we might get the tenants WE love? Is it our time, at last? I brought this up at a recent get-together of MLMs (moms like me) as we drank coffee and celebrated the end of another school year. Read more, after the jump:
One woman was adamant as she voiced her first demand:
“Pei Wei.” The rest of us murmured agreement.
“And we need a music venue that doesn’t serve alcohol,” she continued. We all nodded in awe. What a refreshing departure from our usual worries about bingo parlors and strip clubs.
“Ice cream,” said someone else, as we began to loosen up. “What about Ben & Jerry’s?” Her comment prompted us to wonder about the mysterious forces that keep some businesses out of Dallas. None of us could think of a Ben & Jerry’s anywhere else in the city. But, like I said, we are dreaming here.
“A bagel shop, like Einstein’s.” Genius. That is where I (the virtual “I”) will get my coffee and read the paper, in my fantasy of living in the residences there, if things work out well at Town Center. The operative word here is “IF.”
Do you have fantasies for the Town Center? Send them to buildyourowntowncenter@advocatemag.com, and you may find them mentioned on the Back Talk Lake Highlands blog. Now that the opening has been delayed until the start of the new decade, let’s use the reprieve to tell the developers what we want.
“Pei Wei is non-negotiable,” my friend warned.
The gauntlet has been thrown. Read our lips. P-e-i W-e-i.
