The Forest Theater in South Dallas has a new, uplifting message on its aging marquee: “The Future Is Here.” Indeed, nonprofit Forest Forward is preparing to break ground on a $75 million renovation that will transform and expand the deteriorating building into a bustling hub for arts education, creation, performances and exhibits.
Built in 1949 by theater magnate Karl Hoblizelle (the developer behind the Majestic and Lakewood and Inwood theaters), the Forest is situated in the 75215 ZIP code. The area has the lowest life expectancy in Dallas County — 67 years — but has recently seen the third highest leap in home prices statewide, noted Forest Forward founder and CEO Elizabeth Wattley.
“The Forest Theater will be a catalyst to serve as an economic anchor for the neighborhood and the community,” Wattley said. “It will certainly be a space of vibrancy. We’ll be a beacon of light for the neighborhood.”
The complex will offer 13,000 square feet of space for arts education, a podcast room, a design studio, a flex space, a 200-seat studio theater, a 1,000-seat concert hall and a rooftop terrace with a skyline view.
Wattley and other Forest Forward executives met with about 120 supporters, politicians and South Dallas residents on Sept. 14 at NorthPark Center to celebrate the opening of an exhibition there that details the project and to launch a campaign drive.
“Forest Forward: The Future Is Here” is located on the first-floor corridor between the mall’s central garden and Mark di Suvero’s orange steel Ad Astra sculpture in NorthCourt. NorthPark art manager Anna Kern curated the exhibit. “It’s a storytelling piece, almost like a love letter, and they did a beautiful job,” Wattley said.
The exhibit features a replica of the theater’s signature green and red neon tower by Dallas artist Sergio Garcia, as well as videos and artwork by 15 other local artists, and it outlines plans for the complex. The exhibition came about when NorthPark co-owner Nancy Nasher asked Wattley how she could support Forest Forward at a meeting of the Business Council for the Arts. During the event, Wattley also announced the new Forward Fund capital campaign, which quintuples donations up to $5,000.
Motorists have been whizzing past the theater’s dark marquee for decades on elevated S.M. Wright Freeway, which obliterated part of the thriving neighborhood when it was constructed in the 1950s.
Willie Mae Coleman, an 89-year resident of South Dallas, told the audience that “everyone was excited” when the Forest Theater opened in 1949, even though the Black community was prohibited from entering and had to attend a different local theater. “We wanted to go but couldn’t go,” Coleman said.
The arrival of the elevated roadway sparked white flight and decimated business for the theater, which eventually opened to Black patrons. “When we could go, we went, and we had a ball,” Coleman said.
The South Dallas community activist said she planned to donate $25 to the Forward Fund. “I am so proud of South Dallas,” she said. “If you can give a dollar, it’s a blessing to be able to give what you can.”
Forest Forward plans to throw a groundbreaking party on April 4 — 4-4-24 — with the grand opening coming on the theater’s 75th anniversary in December 2024. It will be the first time that the theater’s signature neon tower will be illuminated in more than 50 years, Wattley said.
The state is converting the highway to a ground-level road with traffic lights in that area via the S.M. Wright Phase II transportation project. Board chair Matrice Ellis-Kirk told the audience that the arts hub “will help us to continue to build out the southern sector of this city, which is the real heart of the city. We are working with the community — not for the community, but with the community.”
Established in 2017, the organization developed the project after spending a lot of time gaining input from the area’s residents, business owners, faith leaders, educators, artists and children. Forest Forward has already been nurturing young artists in the neighborhood.
Working with the Dallas Independent School District, Forest Forward was instrumental in the 2020 transformation of a nearby elementary school into the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Arts Academy for pre-K through eighth grade. In 2024, the academy will graduate its first class of eighth graders, Wattley pointed out. It will link with the new arts center for coursework.
Arts supporters and Forest Forward board members Linda and Jon Halbert got the Forest initiative started when they bought and donated the historic theater in 2017. The organization has since raised more than half of its campaign goal, which will fund the arts center plus the purchase of nearby land for the development of 150 units of mixed-income housing. Honorary campaign chair and longtime U.S. congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson helped secure $4 million for the project from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Other major funding includes $5 million from the W.W. Caruth, Jr. Fund at the Communities Foundation of Texas, $1 million each from the Rainwater Charitable Foundation and Constantin Foundation, and $2.5 million from the Mellon Foundation.