West Dallas’ Beloved Bataan Community Center Will Undergo Repairs and Remain Open — for Now

The three-year fight to keep the beloved West Dallas Bataan Community Center in the hands of Beyond Baseball, a nonprofit for children, is over. Or at least on pause.The Lucious L. Williams Foundation, the group that owns the crumbling, 78-year-old structure that sits less than a mile from the trendy Trinity Groves development, has agreed to honor the remaining seven years of Beyond Baseball’s 10-year lease on the center.The timing of the agreement couldn’t be better, said Maria Lozada Garcia, president of Beyond Baseball and the West Dallas resident and community leader who has been at the heart of the fight to keep the Bataan Center open, because many area children are just days from the start of the school year.“The community needs the service Beyond Baseball can provide. Over the summer, families and children didn’t have this place to congregate and have activities to do. We’re hopeful Beyond Baseball can restart tutoring and other programming soon,” Lozada Garcia said. News of the agreement comes about seven months after Lozada Garcia and West Dallas residents announced their opposition to the foundation’s desire to sell the 4.5-acre property where the center sits for about $10 million. Old homes and businesses around the center have been bulldozed over the past few years in favor of glitzy apartment buildings and trendy shops.  Continue reading...