“A groundbreaking took place this morning for yet another high-end, residential high-rise in downtown Dallas near Klyde Warren Park,” read a story from KERA. Dubbed the Atelier building, its name recalled a French studio, the kind of place an artist did their work. In June 2018, workers broke ground on the tower that was to include Flora Lofts. “The idea of having an artist residency in downtown Dallas was a very poetic idea and obviously very needed - to make the Dallas Arts District an actual community.” He points out that although the area is home to performance and exhibition spaces, few artists call it their actual home. Reid Robinson served as media and events manager for the Dallas Arts District Foundation from 2014 through October 2016, and Flora Lofts, “was one of the primary reasons I was excited to be there,” he says. In the end, what was pitched as a bohemian retreat is now 41 stories of “modern luxury living.” It ended up, critics say, like so many things in Dallas, a bold idea that won hard-fought approval for public money, only to revert back to a real estate play. Today, the development is simply another upscale high-rise, with rents above the city’s market averages.įlora Lofts continues to have meaning - but only in terms of shattered expectations. In Dallas, it’s something else entirely.įlora is a street in the Dallas Arts District, where Flora Lofts was conceived more than a decade ago as a low-cost housing haven for artists of all kinds, a benevolent refuge near the Nasher Sculpture Center, in what would later become an increasingly high-priced district. The name alone conjures up images of a 1920s screen idol, known for creativity and beauty. Editor's note: This story is part of an ongoing series for Arts Access examining the health and well-being of our North Texas arts economy.įlora Lofts.
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