Can Dirty Sixth be cleaned up? City Hall, the bars and clubs, and now a big developer say “Maybe?”
"We need to talk about a re-tenanting. That doesn't mean running people off the street. The dance clubs, beer joints, and tattoo parlors are all perfectly legal and legit businesses. But people are surprised at how few daytime businesses there are on the street. ...
Nothing likewise ever came of a grand $20 million public works plan in 2014 that looked to narrow the street to three lanes of traffic; install wider"festival sidewalks" to encourage outdoor use; and address electrical, water, and sewer issues in the aged buildings along the strip, hoping those investments would attract a more diverse mix of businesses.
Since 2019, Dallas-based Stream Realty Partners has acquired 32 storefronts on both sides of East Sixth. It plans to find new tenants for some spaces, but in others it wants to demolish the existing structures and build new mixed-use properties that rise far above the 45 feet in height currently allowed in much of the historic district.
As Stream began acquiring properties, it focused on the 500 and 600 blocks because they have the fewest contributing structures to the Sixth Street Historic District, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places way back in 1975. From Stream's perspective, though, the only way to make an infill project work would be to increase the building heights to a maximum of 140 feet, a process the City Council finally authorized late in the evening of its marathon June 9 meeting.
"There are opportunities to look at changes that would allow for some of that new development to come in without altering the historic nature of that area," Tovo continued."I'm willing to have that conversation. But it seems like a tough idea if we're [already] talking about demolishing historic buildings that are in place to make room for that redevelopment."
Tovo said well-meaning bar and club operators could comply by sharing their safety and communication plans and points of contact with police, fire, and emergency response teams ahead of time."That is an idea that, I think, has real merit. It could put in place some programs and procedures that would really help communication between bar owners and our public safety officers on the street, as well as setting expectations for training.
Cody Cowan, executive director of the Red River Cultural District – which intersects East Sixth right where Stream Realty wants to build to as high as 140 feet – has also criticized the entertainment license concept, saying it is unneeded. He calls out city staff for, so far, not reaching out to nightlife businesses to solicit their input on how to structure regulations so as to not burden owners of businesses that operate on low-single-digit profit margins.
And if there is any kind of coordinated effort to"change Sixth Street," she said, community groups on both sides of the highway should be able to weigh in on how that change takes place."The question is, how do you walk back what is qualified as an entertainment district, which is in fact a drinking district?" she said."There's a lot of desire for it to be something like what people think of as a cultural district.
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