Dallas Finally Looks to Develop Hensley Field — 738-acres of Rotten Land on Prime Real Estate

Hensley Field is, for the moment and for years, the place where Dallas City Hall goes to hide things, at least temporarily. Old cop cars. Confederate monuments. Dogs owned by nurses exposed to Ebola patients.The former Navy property — 738 acres of it on the shores of Mountain Creek Lake — stretches into the infinite horizon, a mostly industrial wasteland broken up by the occasional derelict building or shipping container. By the city's own description, there's no there there — save for "buildings, drainage infrastructure, open space, and extensive paved surfaces, including runway, taxiways, aircraft parking ramps, roadways and vehicle parking lots." Hardly a destination location.Then, too, Hensley Field is home to a long-standing issue of contamination wrought by the Navy's five decades there, which began 1949. The feds were supposed to cleanse the land for Dallas to re-use almost two decades ago, yet little has been done. And no help appears to be on the way. This is why Dallas City Hall has allowed Hensley Field to molder on the Grand Prairie border, to sit idle and go to waste. The city has long believed the ground is just too noxious to remake.But some city staffers say they can wait no longer. They believe Hensley Field's do-over can be done and must be done.  Continue reading...