Lower Greenville Neighborhood Association

St. Pat’s Event Coming March 17th

lgnauser24 — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 23:09:02 +0000

In an effort to quell the impact of tens of thousands of St. Patrick’s party-goers descending upon Lower Greenville residential neighborhoods on March 17, the Lower Greenville Neighborhood Association has been working since October with event organizers, City departments, and other neighborhood associations to achieve significant results.

No-parking signs will be placed on parkways Thursday evening (24 hours prior to the event), but parking restriction does not go into effect until Saturday morning. A note to residents: Remove your car from the side of the street with signs before Saturday morning, March 17, and tell your neighbors to do the same. Cars parked in violation of the no-parking plan will be towed. There will be no exception for residents.

Working with the city, LGNA delivered an information sheet and a detailed map of the parking restrictions to all residents in the LGNA area. Click on either of the images below for more information.

New this year at the request of residents north of McCommas, no-parking signs will be erected in the 5900-6000 blocks of streets north of McCommas. A larger attendance at the parade north of Mockingbird and increased events in the Greenville/McCommas area have spread parking onto residential streets as far north as Mockingbird.

In 2007 and 2008 LGNA conveyed residents’ concerns about the amount of residential parking taken by Lowest Greenville bar patrons on streets south of Belmont, and the no-parking signs were extended to Ross. After St. Patrick’s in 2011, LGNA conveyed residents’ concerns about parking north of McCommas, and City officials have again listened to our citizens.

The only street excepted from no-parking signs is the 5700-6000 blocks of McCommas. Because McCommas is a major thoroughfare and wide enough to accommodate two-way traffic, there will be no parking restrictions. All other blocks within the LGNA area – Ross to Mockingbird, Greenville to Skillman – will have either temporary no-parking signs, permanent no-parking, or day-long resident parking only.

Temporary no-parking or RPO signs are generally on the north side of the street for east-west streets and on the west for north-south streets. However, there are a few exceptions because of permanent no-parking or RPO signs or because of bus traffic.

In addition to the block party between Vanderbilt and Vickery, the morning’s Upper Greenville parade sends free-drinking parade watchers meandering south with the accompanying problems of excessive parking, litter, and lack of restrooms. At the request of LGNA and neighborhood associations west of Greenville, the area between Winton and Belmont will see trash containers and signage intended to deter littering and DWI.

Each year has seen incremental improvements to fine-tune control of the huge crowds, heavy traffic, litter, illegal parking, and other issues associated with the several events along Greenville Avenue. These improvements are possible because of the hard work of over 100 volunteers every year. This year will be no different.

Filed under: Events and Meetings, Neighborhood Information

January LGNA Meeting – JOIN US!

lgnauser24 — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 23:47:41 +0000

NEXT LGNA MEETING

WHEN Tuesday, January 31 7:00 PM
WHERE Snuffer’s, 3526 Greenville Ave.
TOPIC Volunteer Recognition

January’s Lower Greenville Neighborhood Association membership meeting will be a thank-you to the scores of volunteers who make our association known as an organization that cares about its residents. Put Tuesday, January 31, on your calendar. Our friends at Snuffer’s Restaurant and LGNA will provide refreshments for an informal party to meet your neighbors and get acquainted with others who care about our area. We’ll discuss 2011 neighborhood successes and what to expect in 2012.

The Lower Greenville Neighborhood Association has been described as one of the most active neighborhood associations in the city. That activity would not be possible without volunteers who help LGNA thrive. If you’re a neighborhood volunteer or if you just want to meet your neighbors, come to the LGNA social at Snuffer’s Restaurant, 3526 Greenville. 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, January 31.

Filed under: Events and Meetings

Trader Joe’s Coming to Lowest Greenville

lgnauser24 — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 23:35:54 +0000

Who would have thought the hottest commodity in East Dallas would be a grocery store? For months, the good folks in Lake Highlands waged a seriously coordinated campaign to get Trader Joe’s to open in the new and coming Lake Highlands Town Center. That would be a great location for them, but Joe & Co passed for now in favor of a couple other more developed locations. Simultaneously, Madison Partners (the real estate company which owns the old Arcadia site) has been busy promoting its new “Arcadia Park” concept. The idea was to have a handful of permanently mounted food trucks sharing some common facilities. Officials at the City of Dallas worked for months on creating zoning standards to create this type of facility. They were afraid that similar developments would pop up all over the city without proper zoning being addressed. Just before New Year’s day, word came down that instead of the food truck facility, Madison had landed Trader Joe’s as a tenant on the Arcadia site.

So what about the Food Trucks?
Plans are that the food truck concept will share the space with Trader Joe’s. This makes much more sense when you think about it. They will be able to share facilities such as restrooms and a covered eating area. Given the weather extremes we have, this will allow the food trucks to be open year round. Madison currently plans to roll out both Trader Joe’s and the food trucks about the same time. They have only just begun the process of getting permits and choosing a contractor, so don’t expect dirt to be flying anytime soon. Madison estimates opening near the end of 2012.

Why not the Whole Foods site?
The first question people ask is, why don’t they use the abandoned Whole Foods site? Mostly, that site is more than 3 times the size of the typical Trader Joe’s. Of course everything is bigger in Texas, but that pushes things a little too far. The typical Trader Joe’s is less that 15K sqft. The Whole Foods site is close to 45K sqft, not including the Blockbuster portion. In addition, Whole Foods is still holding the lease through 2013 and won’t give it up to another grocery store until it runs out. Plus, wouldn’t a new building with an attached food truck entertainment concept sound a lot more fun?

Filed under: Benefits and Businesses, Neighborhood Information

December 2011 Crime Report

lgnauser24 — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 23:22:59 +0000

The crime reports for December are below. For the first time in a very long while, I simply don’t have any significant news to share. Once again, we had a very good month, with only 19 total incidents in the residential part of the neighborhood. Most significantly, there was only 1 burglary in the entire LGNA area in December and that one was of a garage, not the house itself. We did have 7 car-break-ins in the neighborhood, which is about typical. I’m hoping we can do better on this in the coming year.

In other good news, the electronics burglar which was working the M-Streets area appears to have either been arrested for something else or moved outside the Central division. There were no burglaries matching his MO in our area or the area around us.

THANK YOU
I wanted to offer a big LGNA Thank You to all those who contributed to the goodie baskets for the fire station, tips for our ENP officer and the stuffed animals donated to DPD Patrol. As usual for our neighborhood, there was an abundance of donations from dozens of neighborhood residents. We brought 6 baskets of goodies to the fire station and almost 200 stuffed animals to DPD to use when dealing with children in distress situations.