Developers float the idea of a White Rock Lake restaurant, but to those who love the natural landscape, it is going to be a tough sell
In a decades-long series of proposals for commercial development at White Rock Lake, the latest idea involves building a restaurant on a 12-acre lot at Boy Scout Hill southwest of Mockingbird and Buckner.
“The idea of a destination restaurant at White Rock Lake is going to be a hard sell,” says Michael Jung, chairman of the White Rock Lake Task Force.
Local architect Lyle Burgin and attorney Richard Kopf presented their idea to the task force in December to test the waters and gather public input before pursuing an official proposal.
Few details are known about the exact size and scale, the menu, the price point, parking or street reconfiguration. There’s not even a rendering yet, but Burgin says the design of the restaurant would fit in with the surrounding atmosphere.
“My vision is something similar to the stone tables — a lodge type of feel,” he says, referring to the pavilion near the Bath House Cultural Center off East Lawther.
This early and open dialogue came at the suggestion of Willis Winters, the director of the Dallas Park and Recreation Department. When Burgin and Kopf approached the city with the idea, Winters recommended they gather community input before drawing up any presumptuous, detailed plan.
“It was important to me that we do it that way,” Winters says.
The idea for a restaurant at Boy Scout Hill won’t move forward without enough community support.
“They’re doing it the right way,” Jung says about the process, but when it comes to commercial development at the lake, “I don’t think the feelings have changed.”
The general attitude of the task force leans toward conservation and away from development that may upset the natural setting of the lake.
The idea for a restaurant at Boy Scout Hill was met with “open-minded skepticism,” Jung says.
So, what’s different about this idea? The location, for one.
Gerry Worrall, the city’s park board representative for the White Rock Lake area, says increased traffic may not be a huge concern as it often is. The area has easy access points straight from the already busy thoroughfares of Mockingbird and Buckner, so neighborhood streets wouldn’t see much impact.
“This is probably the one location at the lake where [the issue of traffic] would not be as relevant,” Worrall says.
Many questions remain, particularly how the restaurant would operate. Winters says an ideal scenario is as a nonprofit similar to the Klyde Warren Park restaurant, Savor, which is run by the Woodall Rogers Park Foundation, sending revenue back into the park. He says no such foundation around the lake has approached the city on the idea yet. The other scenario is one in which the city issues a public request for proposals from private developers — if the idea gets that far.
“We see this as a process for public input before we even start putting lines on the paper,” Burgin says. “In order for a restaurant to be successful at the lake, it has to have the community support. Otherwise, it isn’t worth doing.”