Lake Highlands: An entertainment destination?

HOW CREEKSIDE IS CHANGING SKILLMAN AND ABRAMS’ LACKLUSTER REPUTATION

Moving from East Dallas to Lake Highlands shouldn’t be a big deal.

But Tyler Isbell didn’t appreciate SkillmanMockingbird’s proximity to restaurants and retail until he left.

“We moved up here with great schools but no amenities,” he says. “Grocery stores were nonexistent. Restaurants were nonexistent.”

The timing of the Isbell family’s 2013 move wasn’t ideal.

Construction continued to stall at the Lake Highlands Town Center at Skillman and Walnut Hill. Several businesses shuttered down the road at the Skillman Abrams shopping center. After Tom Thumb vacated the intersection’s northeast corner, 7-Eleven, Sigel’s Liquor, Big Lots and Liquid Zoo followed suit.

Neighbors complained about the number of service businesses and lack of recreation options, former City Councilman Jerry Allen says.

Despite the complaints, Skillman and Abrams is a gateway to Lake Highlands. At least that’s the way our neighborhood’s current City Councilman, Adam McGough, sees it.

“When you start looking strategically at the entire run of Skillman, I-635 all the way to Abrams … that becomes the backbone of our entire district,” he says.

If that’s true, are we making the best first impression? And is the newly developed Creekside the catalyst for change?

Too few restaurants, too many loan agencies

Skillman and Abrams is a geographic anomaly. Touching Merriman Park, University Manor and Vickery Meadow, three Dallas City Council districts converge at the intersection. District 10’s McGough, District 13 Councilwoman Jennifer Gates and District 9 Councilman Mark Clayton share ownership of the area, although McGough is spearheading development initiatives.

At the northwest corner, Super Target attracts neighbors from both East Dallas and Lake Highlands. Habitat for Humanity Resale and Harbor Freight Tools populate the southeast corner, along with a laundromat and other service businesses.

Vibrant loan agency signs dot corners of the intersection. When Allen was

Lake Highlands’ city councilman, he vehemently fought against payday lenders. He led the city council to pass an ordinance limiting the number and location of future lending agencies, which he says take advantage of lowincome customers.

“It makes you think your neighborhood’s going downhill,” he told the Advocate in 2011.

Isbell — the vice president at SRS Real Estate Partners and chair of

McGough’s City Council District 10 economic development committee — agrees.

“My wife and I aren’t going to spend date night at a cash store or payday loan,” he says.

Even without the loan agencies, neighbors’ consensus was the intersection needed several upgrades, Allen says. That perception hasn’t changed much since he left office in 2015.

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