Dallas must not miss its shot at a rare real estate steal — the chance to acquire, at virtually no cost, a huge hidden gem of green space in the city’s southwest corner.
The situation involving this Mountain Creek property is uncomfortably similar to that of Fairfield State Park, which recently closed after Texas leaders failed to strike an agreement with its private landowner.
Although Dallas seems poised to get its deal done right, the clock is ticking.
“This is a great opportunity for the city to preserve a fast-disappearing kind of natural space,” said John Jenkins, Dallas Park and Recreation Department director. “In this case, donated land to serve a growing part of the city.”
At stake is the 282-acre Big Cedar Wilderness, just north of the always-overcrowded Cedar Ridge Preserve. With ample trails built ad hoc by users, Big Cedar is both a playground for mountain bikers and a refuge for birdwatchers and hikers.
On their own dime, neighbors and other nature lovers have stewarded this land. So have the bikers who otherwise would have to travel to Arkansas or Colorado to find similar challenges.
Big Cedar has flipped repeatedly among potential developers for more than 30 years, each accompanied by implicit handshake agreements continuing to allow public access.
Despite my many hikes in the nearby preserve, only this month did I visit Big Cedar for the first time. With me was Robert Kent, Texas state director of Trust for Public Land, the nonprofit that has shepherded so many green spaces into the Dallas parks portfolio.
We walked part of Big Cedar’s long rolling limestone escarpment, canopied by oaks, pecans and cedars and studded with craggy ridges and cliffs.
The fragrance of wet cedar reminiscent of the Hill Country hung from the previous night’s rain. The season’s first bluebonnet nubs peeked out to take spring’s temperature. A beaver lodge sat in the creek below; junipers beckoned the golden-cheeked warbler.
It’s easy to take this glorious state of things for granted — until that next developer comes along and Big Cedar, zoned for residential, is laid raw by construction similar to the apartment complexes going up just outside its borders.
As we saw with the Fairfield State Park debacle, a wonderful piece of property — beloved by the public but without permanent protections — can suddenly be gone.
Trust for Public Land has devoted a year’s work to ensuring a different outcome for Big Cedar. Along the way, the landowner, Liberty Bankers Life Insurance, decided to make a strong conservation statement.
The CEO of the Dallas-based company is Brad Phillips, son of the late billionaire investor Gene Phillips. Hearing about Trust for Public Land’s interest, Phillips asked consultant and former Irving Mayor Herb Gears to help.
Gears told me Phillips — with no plans to develop the land anytime soon — decided this green space, valued at $18 million, deserves instead to be preserved.
“It’s the right move for a company that wants to be a good community partner,” Gears said, “especially given the dearth of soft-surface trails in the city.”
Kent’s team is wrapping up its due diligence, which includes a site survey and title review, then will put the plan in front of the Dallas Park Board and City Council for final approval later this spring.
“We have this shot, we need to take it,” Kent said.
The land transfer will cost Dallas and its taxpayers nothing. Trust for Public Land will seek reimbursement from the city’s reforestation fund for staffing and research costs. That fund is seeded by fees paid by developers who remove trees from their properties.
If the council approves the deal, park director Jenkins expects users of the Big Cedar Wilderness to be able to continue using it just as they do today.
Eventually, perhaps with funding from the upcoming bond program, the park department will be able to develop a master plan to address long-term needs such as additional parking.
For now, hikers and bikers can use adjacent parking provided by Mountain Creek Church, a passionate partner of Big Cedar.
The church owns 84 acres of green space, which includes a worship complex on what is known as Prayer Mountain and nearby recreational amenities.
Founded in 1985 by Pastor Robert Summers and his wife, JoAn, the church began holding services here in 1991 after toiling for several years to clean up the land, which formerly was a mule ranch.
They quickly realized they had a jewel of a property and opened the gates to all nature lovers. “From the beginning, we have said this is God’s hill,” JoAn told me. “We are just the stewards of it.”
Many of the cyclists who cherish this property are members of the all-volunteer DORBA, the Dallas Off-Road Bicycle Association, whose mission is to provide safe trail access to all types of users.
In partnership with Mountain Creek Church, DORBA has maintained the 8 miles or so of trail on its land.
Because no formal boundary separates the church property from the insurance company’s land, other trails — some created by biking enthusiasts and others by hikers — crisscross that property as well.
DORBA president Jacob Nilz, who along with his biking and trail-running wife, Maggie, and dog Riley accompanied us on our recent tour, said the group currently maintains 22 local trails that cover more than 200 miles.
He’s just as enthusiastic as the church founders about the Dallas park department taking over the land to the north and DORBA beginning to maintain those trails as part of a pending agreement with the city.
“We have a unique opportunity to put Dallas on the map as one of the premier mountain-biking destinations with this land,” he said.
While DORBA’s No. 1 priority is off-road biking, Jacob told me the multiuse trails they create are for everyone — and the group is careful to make sure all users feel safe space exists for their needs.
Wednesday night, more than 50 people showed up for a Mountain View neighborhood town hall to discuss the proposed deal and offer ideas that will go into the city’s eventual planning process.
While several neighbors questioned city representatives about how increased parking and trash would be handled, the query heard most frequently was, “When can you get started on taking ownership of this land?”
Under Jenkins’ leadership, Dallas has grown its park system with signature properties at little to no cost. Trust for Public Land has provided a huge assist, helping acquire more than 400 acres in less than five years.
Among the city’s wins: the acquisition of Woody Branch, off I-35E in Oak Cliff, Parkdale Lake, just south of I-30E and the development of other parks along Five Mile Creek across southern Dallas.
The Big Cedar Wilderness remains our little bit of the Hill Country not yet cut flat and poured over with concrete. Let’s move it from the endangered list to the permanently protected one before someone makes its owner an offer he can’t refuse.
