NYC to Dallas move. Uptown/Downtown...HELP! (Houston, Bryan: apartment, to rent)

[restgrl]

My fiancée and I are moving to Dallas in the very near future (February) and we still have not committed to a place to live. We want to be downtown, but I'm finding out there are a lot of different areas in uptown and downtown.

Originally the plan was to rent, then buy a loft or condo once we had a better feel for the area. But we just found a loft that we feel in love with -- it's on Bryan Street near Allen and south of Exall Park. What is this area like?

We are young and without kids and we really want to be in an area where we can walk to brunch, walk the dog, and be near non-chain restaurants and stores. We currently live in Manhattan, so it's very important for us to feel like we still are living a "city" life. We do not want to buy a house, but we are open to lofts, townhomes or an apartment in a highrise. The one option we would like to avoid are those planned apartment communities like the Gables, which there is nothing wrong with, but we would like to try something different. We understand Dallas is NOT NYC, but we would like to find an area of Dallas that resembles the feel of New York.

Any help or direction would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much and we're looking forward to moving to your city!

[MaryS80]

Uptown would be your best bet. Downtown Dallas has yet to really find its groove, and its pretty dead one nights and weekends. There is one grocery store in downtown and it has had some trouble staying in the black.

Uptown is mildly funky, but it's still very yuppie-fied. It has a good mix of chains and one of a kind places.

Mockingbird station is fun area, but unfortunately it is a bit over run with daddys money SMU students. I'm not knocking the student body as a whole, but I have heard some horror stories from people who live in those lofts.

[aceplace]

Your loft near Allen and Bryan is in a densely populated area all right, but it has few stores or places for brunch.

A more congenial area would be near the Knox-Henderson neighborhood, or perhaps somewhere around Oak Lawn. The West Village area is somewhat yuppified, as is LoMac, farther down McKinney. But you can be the judge of that.

Welcome to Dallas.

[Drew610]

We were down on Main Street last evening and it was pretty alive. If you parked yourself right there on Main Street like at the third rail lofts on something like that, that would have some of the NYC feel you are talking about. Downtown continues to get better - it's far from perfect, but it's getting better.

[ctrres]

Something Dallas, Denver and a few other gamma cities have never understood is that even New York City has never had "downtown" housing.

(Neither has San Francisco, but that city more closely resembles Hong Kong.)

The analogy isn't exact, because of the vast scale difference, and the fact that Manhattan is bifurcated into roughly two Central Business Districts (paltry in square footage would be an understatement, but by comparison, like Houston's West Loop South, or Dallas's FND, more than anywhere else: Midtown ~ "Galleria" areas in both TX cities). Again scale, and a reliance on the car, is the difference--but, obviously, still there is not even a partial equivalent to a Times Square or a Rockefeller Ctr.

But "financial" districts per se, both in NYC and anywhere else in the country up until recently were the same. Dead at night. In NYC, it's still that way, even with the introduction of some new housing and the conversions of abandoned banks in Downtown--that is, the southern tip of the island. In fact up until the 1990s, whereas at least Dallas had Manor House, one would have been hard pressed to find housing at all in Lower Manhattan until the Battery. Now there's some new construction off Wall Street and some adaptive reuse there, like what's happened in the past decade or so in D.

Still no services in either (financial CBD) "downtown" Dallas or (financial CBD) Downtown NYC. Both close up at night--and both always have. Lower Broadway's Borders book store still closes in the early evening, and there are no supermarkets anywhere.

That said:
Oak Cliff, East Dallas, South Dallas are Brooklyn beyond the Slope, or Morningside or Bronx.
Lakewood is Forest Hills, or Boerum or Carroll.
West Dallas is East Harlem.
Oak Lawn is Chelsea.
Park Cities is Westchester Co.
Deep Ellum is the meat packing district.

That area of Bryan--like southern "Uptown" (a name made-up in the 90s by developers) on the other side of Central, used to have prewar, underused commercial buildings with some character. They are gone and replaced with the same new gated mega-4 story brick and stucco construction that Lincoln uses in NoVA outside of 495. Grassy lawns in front.

Probably Williamsburg or South Slope. Both comparatively lack services.

[nsumner]

The Exall Park area is really nice however, if you buy there and moved in say 3-5 years, I think you would have a tough time because there is still so much more going to be built in that area. You would have major competition and those HOA dues are not cheap. The other option would be to rent it out.

I would recommend that you check out the 1/2 duplexes in Lakewood. You get a lot for your money, no HOA and the feel of having a single family home.

Naima

[Lakewooder]

Exall Park will soon have a DART rail station (just over a year) also - so you would probably have to wait for the amenities you want -- but do check out Deep Ellum to the south as well as downtown. East Dallas/Lower Greenville/MStreets/Lakewood might be a bit tame for you but it does have the independent types who hate chains and conformity and will actually discuss politics, art, literature, instead of the materialistic drivel you are apt to find in other places. Knox-Henderson sort of leads into the area diagonally and is very hot right now, so you get a mixture of East Dallas, Uptown and Park Cities types -- very 'dynamic'.

[restgrl]

Everyone, thanks so much for your feedback – it has given us some great direction.

Ctrres, regarding your input on downtown NYC versus other cities – sorry if you misunderstood me and thought I was comparing NYC’s downtown to that of Dallas. As most people know – every city has its own terms for various areas. Generally people consider anything in NYC south of Houston as downtown, which consists of many different areas, some that are residential (West Village and Nolita) and others that are more business heavy, like the Financial District. Regardless, your downtown housing input was very interesting.

I currently live in the area of Manhattan known as Gramercy, which in my opinion has a nice mix of residents, restaurants, bars, grocery stores, cleaners, etc. Basically we are looking for an area of Dallas that is the same. I was really trying to get perspective on what the different terms/areas of Dallas really meant. I understand that one city’s downtown means main street and cute shops, while another’s means office buildings and Fed Ex. I understand Dallas is not a walking city, I will have to drive, and not everything will be around the corner, but it is very important that our driving is limited and things are relatively nearby. We are big believers in local business, and I just want to make sure there are smaller, non-chain businesses available to us. So thanks so all because I feel you have given us a better grasp of the different areas in Dallas.

And thanks aceplace for the West Village yuppie warning – you are not the first to warn us of this.

Thanks again y’all for the feedback!

[rb4browns]

Originally Posted by restgrl

Everyone, thanks so much for your feedback – it has given us some great direction.

Ctrres, regarding your input on downtown NYC versus other cities – sorry if you misunderstood me and thought I was comparing NYC’s downtown to that of Dallas. As most people know – every city has its own terms for various areas. Generally people consider anything in NYC south of Houston as downtown, which consists of many different areas, some that are residential (West Village and Nolita) and others that are more business heavy, like the Financial District. Regardless, your downtown housing input was very interesting.

I currently live in the area of Manhattan known as Gramercy, which in my opinion has a nice mix of residents, restaurants, bars, grocery stores, cleaners, etc. Basically we are looking for an area of Dallas that is the same. I was really trying to get perspective on what the different terms/areas of Dallas really meant. I understand that one city’s downtown means main street and cute shops, while another’s means office buildings and Fed Ex. I understand Dallas is not a walking city, I will have to drive, and not everything will be around the corner, but it is very important that our driving is limited and things are relatively nearby. We are big believers in local business, and I just want to make sure there are smaller, non-chain businesses available to us. So thanks so all because I feel you have given us a better grasp of the different areas in Dallas.

And thanks aceplace for the West Village yuppie warning – you are not the first to warn us of this.

Thanks again y’all for the feedback!

You've gotten some good advice. I married a girl from Queens and have spent quite a bit of time in Manhattan, Brooklyn, etc. with her family (and I pride myself on knowing how to pronounce "Houston St. ). I think the only thing close to the complete urban experience is some parts of San Francisco. If you have realistic expectations and are able to except the smaller scale of the urban areas here you will prob do fine.

[wesley_willis]

always glad to have new people come to dallas