OUT FRONT The New Dallas

MORE THAN 5,000 PEOPLE live in downtown Charlotte, a city only half the size of Dallas.

Toronto is also half our size; still, 67,453 people live in its downtown. Denver was late to the party, but in the last year 3,000 people have moved into its central city.

Will it ever happen here? It already has. Apartments and lofts in Uptown and Deep Ellum are going as last as they can be built. In less than two years-and depending on the project, in less than two months-Dallas will actually see people walking their dogs past the skyscrapers downtown. And jogging. And walking to work from their homes.

These first in-towners will still have to get in their cars to go get groceries, but who in Dallas doesn’t get in their cars to go get groceries? The difference is it will only be a matter of months before the in-towners are walking across the street to a local deli. You and I will still be getting in our cars.

When the Central Dallas Association first asked me to consider a special edition on downtown Dallas, my reaction was negative. I gave two reasons. First, I said I’d seen the boarded-up stores on Main Street, the empty buildings, the street people, and if we wrote about downtown Dallas, that’s what we would write. Second, I said that what is happening in north Piano and Lewisville and Las Colinas appeared to me to be more important to the future of greater Dallas than anything happening downtown.

This response was premature if not stupid.

After months of visiting with developers, building owners, city officials, restaurateurs, investors and entrepreneurs, I have completely revised my opinion. Downtown is about to change so dramatically that in one year it will be a completely different place.

When you stop to think about it, as I finally did, none of this should be so surprising. A place where some 200,000 people-executives, office workers, tourists, conventioneers-congregate every day (and plenty more at night) is a good-sized town unto itself. This particular town happens to be the heart and soul of our entire region.

But here’s the exciting part. This time all the talk about downtown’s rebirth has little to do with city planners or master plans that never get completed-or even started. It doesn’t revolve around gigantic public works programs or a Town Lake. Rather, for the first time in 40 years it results from the individual decisions of consumers and entrepreneurs. It is happening because of consumer demand-and because we have young business people with the good sense to fulfill that demand.

As jerry Fults remarks elsewhere in this issue, “Markets turn on a dime, and this market just turned. ” The first wave of investment required some government subsidy, and the City of Dallas showed foresight by providing it, even if it also provided plenty of red tape to go along with it.

But the second wave of investment is purely private, and it’s happening even as this magazine goes to press. Its no surprise that some of that investment comes from places like Toronto and Hong Kong (one a condominium project in the West End, the other an apartment conversion on Commerce), where they understand in-town living. But the people who are leading the charge are home-grown and young. Unlike older investors whose lives revolve around the suburbs and whose fortunes were made there, these entrepreneurs understand the appeal of downtown, and they are creating an entirely new one almost from scratch.

If you need further proof that Dallas is back, consider this: The D Magazine you bold in your hands, combining our special edition on downtown, is the largest published since 1985.

This is the new Dallas. And it’s happening right before our eyes.