Spotlight Series

What projects have you worked on that have made an impact on the greater Dallas community in the past?

Lettelleir: Well, I guess that one has been mixed use developments in Frisco. We're very methodical in our approach to mixed use developments where we can do a hybrid of a form-based code where we have a zoning exhibit that shows a proposed layout as we understand it and develop standards around that. So, we have something to review when the site plan comes in to make sure it's conforming but also within that development of what we call major minor amendments. A minor amendment is something that may be shifted for one reason or another. That's something that can be handled by staff if the applicant disagrees and they can take it before the Planning and Zoning Commission and ultimately City Council. Major amendments mean it opens up the PD where we do a repeal and replace because when I got here, there was one PD that had almost 30 amendments to it, so it was very difficult to administer. So, with the mixed-use developments we've been successful. Other areas are the zoning and development in our downtown, known as the rail district.

We created separate zoning districts for downtown, for the commercial and the residential areas to reflect what was approved in the first downtown master plan back in 1998. That was done a few months before I came to Frisco. But we've done a number of things to emphasize the architectural standards modifying the uses in the downtown that was more conducive for pedestrians. Pedestrian focus has been on downtown, and the city has done a number of things to concentrate on that. And currently, we have Main Street that will go under construction later this month. We are widening the sidewalks to focus on walkability. We have an RFQ out for the city block downtown and that RFQ closes on April the 12th so we're looking for a developer to redevelop that block. Right now, there's not a central open space that's in downtown and so Fourth Street Plaza is something that I had put in the downtown master plan that was acceptable to the public and it's all about walkability and giving people multiple reasons to be downtown, then open space standards for commercial development.

Our mayor, Mayor Cheney has been very supportive of open spaces and commercial developments and it's an old idea, you go back 100 years ago, and it was common for commercial developments to have open space. So, we developed a very refined open space ordinance program. There were some developers who wanted to count the green strip between the back of the curb and the sidewalk as open space and that doesn't cut it now. As far as street trees go, we worked with public works and engineering to get street trees in our developments, excluding our major thoroughfares. We have street connections between our retail centers and residential neighborhoods. And again, that's an old planning concept from over 100 years ago and all that has been done because Andres Duany would say that the people who live closest to retail generally have to drive the furthest and so it's making those viable connections between our single-family neighborhoods and retail centers. There's a development in one of our adjacent cities and it looks like you're driving or walking along an alley, and you have utility boxes and that's not appealing.

Another focus has been preserving natural areas. Major creek ordinances were one of the first things I worked on when I got to Frisco and that left a few battle scars. But preserving our creek corridors and making them amenities within our neighborhoods has been a great project. I had worked in Plano and before Plano updated their standards, there were some Loves that developed right up along the creek that it made it very challenging to maintain because those creeks are going to move over time. But our emphasis has been on how we bring that nature into the overall development and add value to the overall development. Now we have a number of hike and bike trails along our major creeks where we worked with parks to make that happen.

Another big focus of the city has been on preparing for fast growth. Peter Wolf is the author of the book Hot Towns and he basically said there are two types of fast growing communities. One that's reactive, just stamping the plans to make sure it complies with the ordinances. The other one is being proactive. How do you take that growth and turn it into something that benefits the entire community? At the end of the day, everybody has a choice. They can say “I can continue to live here” or “I can move to the next newest development”. So, there's a book out there on suburban decline that talks about how fast-growing cities develop and the citizens just move on to the next newer one. And when that happens, retail will follow where the money goes.

As we plan here in Frisco everything is shiny today, but how do we minimize that shine from rusting in the future? There's one thing that we are doing and that is updating our Comprehensive Plan. We have a number of companies that have relocated recently to Frisco. We have The Star and Frisco Dallas Cowboys training camp. We have the Dallas Stars training facility and we have the RoughRiders. We have all these new things, and I was asking the Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee “what do they all have in common?” And they said, “well, they're bringing jobs”. I knew that there was something more and that answer is that they all came from someplace else, and they might not stay here forever. So future leadership, Frisco leadership, will need to focus on how they will be able to retain them, so they stay here.

We've been focused on aging in place and creating a community that people don't want to leave. The City of Frisco was also the first city in the nation to have a Green Building Program. Now it seems like green buildings are across the nation, but we were the first out of the shoot to do that and that was probably around about 2002. That's, that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Are there any projects in particular that you're working on currently that will contribute to the growth in Frisco and the Greater Dallas region?

Lettelleir: Yeah, one is focusing on downtown, and a great example can be found in Oklahoma City. They were in competition for a Fortune 100 company, and they were shortlisted down to five, but they did not get selected. So, the leadership at that time followed up with a company and said, “we want to understand why, what was the deciding factor?” They responded by saying “the deciding factor was your downtown is dead.” It's just like a lot of towns across the country where their downtowns are dead or dying. They’ve been abandoned and you just have strip retail or retail along regional corridors. I went up there in 2007 and met with officials and they have done quite a few things. They daylighted the creek because of the success of the San Antonio River Walk and they're working on street trees, walkability, and building residential in the downtown. From that experience their leadership took a negative, turned it into a positive, and is now moving forward. Oklahoma City has been very methodical. They've got the public support to make these changes because they've been able to show the proven results.

The same thing has been happening with our downtown. I mean, it's a gem and we've been trying for years to improve it. But at the end of the day, the challenge is instead of having a green field site, you have multiple property owners who might own one or two lots. Especially in the commercial areas these properties are generally 25 by 145 feet so they're not very big so it's almost like herding cats. We can put all the ingredients on the table but at the end of the day, someone has to step up. Donnie Churchman with Nack Development has been one of those guys for us. He was one of the first to step up and do something and then it started to be a domino effect over the last seven years. Now we have more interest. The downside is it's now become successful. Land prices have gone up which is a limiting factor in development. So, success is a double-edged sword, but it's happening and it's very important.

Our City Council is very supportive of our downtown, known as the Rail District. Another thing has been the development around the PGA. The city was successful in luring their corporate headquarters from Florida to Frisco. And from that, that's had a halo effect up in that northern region of Frisco. But now there's a lot more interest in commercial development and that’s a type of commercial development that I don’t think people would have keyed on if it wasn't for the fact that and international brand like the PGA moved up there. Now others are looking to rezone up there and it just changed the whole dynamic. So instead of doing a retail center, now they're thinking about going taller and looking at adding an office since they want to be close to something like the PGA for business events and so forth.

And then there is Hall Park which is now being redeveloped. It was just an office park and now they've torn down two buildings and they've constructed, I think they're both 17 stories, a residential tower and now finishing up on a hotel. They're changing to an 18-hour district similar to The Star. Frisco Station is being developed by Hillwood as well. As soon as that started coming out of the ground, they created a demand for office because now you have food, beverage, and entertainment close by. Craig Hall is also playing off of that theme, and they're doing Monarch Park in that development which is going to be larger than Klyde Warren Park. So, on one end, you have what Mr. Hall is doing and at the other end is the plaza that's out in front of the Ford Center in The Star in Frisco. There’s also a lot happening along the Deep Dallas North Tollway here.

And here's one more thing, before I forget, which is Stonebriar Mall. So that opened in the early 2000’s and we had the Hyatt Hotel that was built there, but now more redevelopment will start happening around there. Now, the one thing that's challenging and will need to be addressed is walkability because when that mall was developed it was very auto centric. So, we did a walkability study through Better Block. That was probably about 10 years ago, so we still have that. And in downtown when you have multiple property owners trying to get them engaged to all work together it has its challenges. And so that's something that's on the horizon whenever they're ready to redevelop.

What big projects are you looking forward to seeing in Frisco and what big projects do you see going on in the region that you think will have a direct and positive effect on Frisco?

Lettelleir: Well, one thing about Frisco, we're essentially 85% built out. So, the city's focus is on what is going to be in that last 15%. Again, that goes back to what I had mentioned earlier in creating a city that keeps people and companies here. How do we make sure we get them the highest and best use on the property? Especially along the Dallas Parkway because if somebody else picks up the property, they hopefully have the foresight to say “hey, I want to do something different because of the development happening around it rather than the standard suburban development”. So, what we do there could be an inspiration to other cities to be more mindful. I've talked to other cities along the Dallas Parkway, and you need to be intentional with what you want along there.

Frisco went through it, so have other cities. There were zoning for dollar days where zoning is approved for this grand vision and that generally happens when the city doesn't have the planning or engineering experience, things get approved, and there's not much to steer that growth. Like I mentioned earlier with zoning exhibits to lay it out because when you're dealing with a developer who may control, let's say 100 acres, it's under one ownership, but after that zoning it may get parceled off and that's where issues can come up if you don't have a regulating plan to show how the overall site is supposed to develop. And so, some of the regional things that we've done like the Six Cities Hike and Bike Trail which goes all the way from Frisco down to White Rock Lake.

Probably in the next 10 years we'll have all of our sections in because it's piecemeal and we've had citizens whether we can just build it earlier. And I respond saying “well, no, we can't because we don't know what the grades will be on the property, and we definitely don't want to spend taxpayer money on something that will get ripped out and have to be paid for again”. But things like that are happening. For Frisco, kind of like being an office magnet, that's going to drive development in the northern suburbs. And one of our challenges is affordability, but we don't have much control over affordability because we don't control the mortgage rates, labor, price of materials, and all of that. That's a challenge. I don't have an answer for that. I've been looking at that for years.

We're looking at parking minimums and parking is a very complex issue and while other cities may have eliminated the parking minimums, I hear that some other cities are starting to reconsider what they did because they've seen the results and when you're auto centric, you still going to need a car to get around. So, you have to provide for that or it has a negative impact on businesses. And so, you know, we're taking a very long, hard look at that. One of our long term goals is having rapid bus transit that connects our main points around the Stonebriar Mall, The Star in Frisco, Hall Park, our downtown, and then up around the PGA because what I like to do is if we can connect and have a reliable transit service then that decreases the need for parking spaces because we'd like to see more uses than parking spaces.

But we've made our share of mistakes and that's something that other cities to the north are going to look at. We want to answer questions like: What did you do right? Why did you do that? What came out of that? It's not necessarily what we did wrong, and so that's something that we share with other cities when they want to reach out to us. And we can say, “hey, this worked, this didn't work”. But whenever something is built, we go back, we'll take a look at it over a period of time to ask if it is actually working the way we thought it would and what we could tweak to make it even better. So, we don't rest on our Laurels.

We take our Planning and Zoning Commission on tours often. When we go to the National Planning Conference coming up in Minneapolis next week, we'll go up there a couple of days early with several commissioners and we'll go around and look at developments because we're always trying to learn from other cities on what works and what doesn't work. And as I mentioned, we are doing a tour of Oklahoma City at of the end of this month where I've taken a few Planning and Zoning Commissioners along with a few members of our Downtown Advisory Board to just take a look at what's working and not working up there.

The first time we did a tour with those two groups was last year when we went up to Northwest Arkansas, toured Bentonville, Springdale, Rogers, and Fayetteville to see what's working, what didn't work, and to learn their stories. And we actually hired a consultant from that. They came from VeloCity to come in and look at our downtown and provide input to our City Council and I think it's the first time a consultant actually got a standing ovation for their work. Daniel Hintz did a really good job. Frisco has always been looking over their horizon as much as we can, and we do not rest on our Laurels so we can be better in public-private partnerships.

For Frisco it seems like one thing led to another when it comes to the ballpark, and then Toyota Stadium, and then the Star in Frisco. When The Star came about, Ron Patterson, a former Assistant City Manager, and myself were doing a presentation when they had the Urban Land Institute conference here back in 2016 and the question we proposed to this group of people from across the nation and outside of the United States was “how long do you take from the first discussion to the final product?” Most people said 25 to 35 years, but it took less than four years from the first discussion on that facility to opening it up. And the Jones family was very committed to it. But that comes about from having a good team and the experience that we've had doing other public-private partnerships. It might have taken us longer if that was our first one. Of course, we had done these, and we moved forward. So, we have a lot of experience in public-private partnerships that we can share with the community. I'll leave it at that.