Planned health clinic excites South Dallas neighborhood
Published at dallasnews.com: 01 May 2022 11:11 PM
By SHERRY JACOBSON
The new South Dallas clinic being built for Parkland Memorial Hospital represents more than an improvement in health care for one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods.
As a crowd of nearly 200 people assembled Thursday for the clinic’s ceremonial groundbreaking, the excitement level was almost palpable for the cluster of nearby residents.
“I haven’t seen anything so big in this neighborhood for 50 years,” said Willie Mae Coleman, 79. “It’s a big day for all of us. I’m so excited.”
Until five years ago, the 7-acre site at Scyene Road and Hatcher Street was home to a “hot-sheet” motel, illegal nightclub and other illicit activities that plagued the community for decades.
“They killed one of my church members in that nasty old motel,” recalled Coleman, president of the surrounding Bertrand Neighborhood Association. She and others fought to get the businesses closed and finally torn down in 2009.
Development of the $19.8 million clinic is a public-private partnership involving the city of Dallas and Frazier Revitalization, a community development organization that amassed the land for the project. A long list of local philanthropy groups also provided financial support, including the South Dallas/Fair Park Trust Fund.
“This could not have happened without significant public and philanthropic support,” said Richard Knight, a former Dallas city manager and Frazier’s chairman.
Frazier is hoping to develop a second phase of the project, called Hatcher Station Village, attracting a variety of neighborhood amenities. They might include a legal services office, pharmacy, dental clinic or workforce training site.
Parkland will lease the 44,000-square-foot clinic when it’s completed in early 2015. It will replace the hospital’s outmoded Community Oriented Primary Care facility at 3320 Live Oak St. in East Dallas.
Currently, the East Dallas clinic serves about 15,000 patients, many of whom live closer to the South Dallas clinic location, said Sharon Phillips, the Parkland executive who oversees Parkland’s 12 community clinics.
Patients also could benefit from the new location being across Hatcher Street from a DART rail station on the Green Line. The new Parkland hospital, which also opens in 2015, is on the same rail line.
“This is the first community clinic we’ll have on the DART line,” Phillips said.
Although the project has not received final approval from Parkland’s board of managers, a lease agreement is expected to be signed in coming weeks. The Dallas City Council also is slated to finalize its involvement in the project later this month.
“We worked long and hard for this,” City Council member Caroline Davis told the gathered crowd. “It has taken a lot of rolling up your sleeves and getting your feet dirty to make sure this project works.”
See the original article at: http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/best-southwest/headlines/20140501-planned-health-clinic-excites-south-dallas-neighborhood.ece
FRI One of 13 Organizations Selected by Citi Foundation and Low Income Investment Fund as part of “Partners in Progress” Initiative
Hatcher Station Village, a modern, mixed-used development in South Dallas, came closer to reality today with an announcement in New York City that Frazier Revitalization, Inc., (FRI) received a $250,000 grant from Citi Foundation to increase economic progress as part of the Partners in Progress (PIP) initiative.
The initiative, backed by the Citi Foundation and the Low Income Investment Fund (LIIF), is designed to increase capacity of trusted local organizations to create strong, resilient neighborhoods and paths to economic opportunity.
“Hatcher Station Village is a catalyst for making connections with education, jobs, health care and community,” said FRI project leader Andrea Hills, who is in New York to receive the grant. “This grant will boost our ability to plan and attract economic development and much needed services in the Frazier neighborhood of South Dallas/Fair Park.”
FRI, born out of the dreams of Frazier Neighborhood residents, was formed in 2005 for the purpose of providing leadership for implementation of the Frazier Neighborhood Master Plan prepared by noted architect and urban planner Antonio Di Mambro. FRI’s mission is to be a catalyst for the revitalization and transformation of Frazier by coordinating, supporting, and assisting in economic and cultural development.
The proposed Hatcher Station Village is located on a 7-acresite across the street from the DART’s Green Line Hatcher Station. While plans are still being developed, the easy access to DART makes this project a cornerstone for economic opportunity in South Dallas, connecting the neighborhood to resources in health care, education, job training and employment.
Through the PIP grant, FRI and 12 other grantees will be able to initiate or deepen their efforts to become “community quarterbacks.” In this role, FRI will lead the development or expansion of local stakeholder networks to improve places-the physical environment of a community including housing, transit, and safety- and create opportunities for people-such as jobs, child development, education, and health. PIP funding will enable grantees to engage and align an expanded range of partners, share knowledge, and use data to drive project design. In addition, grantees will participate in a learning community that will include coaching and skill building.
“Recognizing that there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution to improving economic opportunity, we know the quarterback model works to align smart approaches with smart financing,” said Nancy O. Andrews, President and CEO of LIIF.
“The Partners in Progress initiative is focused on identifying and supporting organizations that have the credibility and potential to be local community development champions,” said Pamela Flaherty, President & CEO of the Citi Foundation.
The impetus behind the PIP initiative came from Investing in What Works for America’s Communities, a book LIIF co-published in 2012 with the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, which asserts that flexible and dynamic community quarterbacks could transform local community development efforts that are often fragmented and duplicative. The Citi Foundation supported LIIF’s work on the original book, and the PIP initiative now aims to advance the community quarterback model across the nation.
To learn more about the PIP program, visit www.partnersinprogressproject.org.
Follow PIP on Twitter, @PIPCommunities, and like the PIP Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/partnersinprogressproject. To learn more about FRI, visit http://www.fridallas.org.
About the Citi Foundation
The Citi Foundation is committed to the economic empowerment and financial inclusion of low- to moderate-income individuals and families in the communities where we work so that they can improve their standard of living. Globally, the Citi Foundation targets its strategic giving to priority focus areas: Microfinance, Enterprise Development, College Success, and Financial Capability and Asset Building. In the United States, the Citi Foundation also supports Neighborhood Revitalization programs. The Citi Foundation works with its partners in Microfinance, Enterprise Development, and Neighborhood Revitalization to support environmental programs and innovations. Additional information can be found at www.citifoundation.com.
About the Low Income Investment Fund
The Low Income Investment Fund (LIIF) invests capital to support healthy families and communities. Since 1984, LIIF has served 1.5 million people by investing $1.4 billion. Over its history, LIIF has provided financing and technical assistance to create and preserve affordable housing, child care centers, schools, healthy food retail, health clinics and transit-oriented developments in distressed neighborhoods nationwide. LIIF’s work has generated $26 billion in family income and societal benefits. LIIF has offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City and Washington, D.C. For more information about LIIF, visit www.liifund.org.
About Frazier Revitalization, Inc.
FRI’s mission is to be a catalyst for the revitalization and transformation of the Frazier Neighborhood by coordinating, supporting, and assisting in economic and cultural development. FRI’s core areas of expertise include real estate development, community outreach and engagement, and collaboration with diverse sectors and organizations.
CONTACT: Andrea Hills, 214-500-1586, ahills@fridallas.org
Frazier Revitalization Inc. Is On the Move
Today, Frazier Revitalization Inc. Chairman Richard Knight and President and CEO Jon Edmonds issued the following statement:
Frazier Revitalization Inc. was created in 2006 with a simple but profound mission: to lay the groundwork for the physical and social revitalization of the Frazier neighborhood for the benefit of its residents. This year, 2010, the intervening years of preparation – primarily acquiring key parcels of land and building relationships – will bear dramatic fruit.
To begin to reverse decades of physical decay, FRI has formed a partnership with the nation’s most successful, most progressive developer of urban projects, McCormack Baron Salazar. Together, we will build the first transit oriented development (TOD) in southern Dallas, located on DART’s new Green Line at the intersection of Scyene and Hatcher. This mixed-income, mixed-use project will include affordable rental housing, market-rate condominiums, retail, office and other commercial space. It will set the standard and open the door for other TOD projects in the neglected southern half of our city.
But building buildings isn’t enough: Bringing new life to a community means building up the people as well. So FRI has expanded its staff, adding individuals dedicated to helping residents combat unemployment and crime, steer young people away from trouble and into productive paths, and become more effective advocates for themselves and their neighbors. We’re delighted to have hired Hank Lawson, Victoria Hicks and Tabatha Smith from the Foundation for Community Empowerment. They’ll join Jon Edmonds, Charlotte Wallace, Quincy Guinyard and Lois Edmonds in working full-time on behalf of the Frazier community.