Anybody can pave paradise and put up a parking lot, but it takes imagination and ingenuity to turf over a parking lot and put up a soccer pitch.
It also requires bureaucratic finesse, philanthropy, business connections who provide in-kind donations and an ambitious but realistic vision. A collection of Oak Cliff residents, entrepreneurs and nonprofit leaders brought all those things together, and the result will be a 2-acre soccer park off Interstate 35E that should debut just as FIFA hits town.
There are plenty of reasons to cheer the Common Ground Soccer Plaza. The surrounding neighborhood has been neglected for decades; now it is in flux. Long-vacant lots, blocky new apartment buildings, aging bungalows and older, garden-style apartments share space on residential streets. A newish elementary school sits a block away. The soccer plaza will be a safe recreational amenity within walking distance for nearby families.
It will rehabilitate an eyesore: an unused DART parking lot on Jefferson Boulevard surrounded by solid concrete walls topped with barbed wire. Raúl Estrada, an Oak Cliff restaurateur and construction company owner, said he knew the site had potential. It sits on a hillside and has a killer view of the downtown skyline.
It’s also relatively level and its retaining walls are in good condition, Estrada said. Soccer supporters just needed to gain control of the property, carve out space for the soccer fields and do some landscaping to make it a neighborhood asset. He secured a 10-year lease for the property from DART, which the transit agency can review after three years, and found a donor to cover the first year’s rent.
According to a news release, the cost to design and build the soccer plaza will be about $3.5 million, with more than $2 million of that coming in the form of in-kind donations. (In contrast, Halperin Park, the recently opened deck park over I-35E less than a mile away, will have cost $300 million when completed.) Common Ground will have soccer pitches for children, pickleball courts, bathrooms, a pavilion and space for food trucks.
“We tried to get it done as efficiently as we could,” Estrada said.
The Puede Network, a youth development nonprofit in Oak Cliff, will manage the soccer plaza. Estrada said that revenue from concessions, court and field rentals and tournament fees will help cover the costs of maintenance and operations. Donors who want to support the soccer plaza can give directly to the Puede Network.
The Common Ground Soccer Plaza project followed a very different path than Halperin Park, but both add to Dallas’ quality of life. A healthy city needs major regional parks, like Halperin, and pocket parks that serve local residents, like Common Ground. Way to goal, Dallas!
