6 December 19 - 25, 2024 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents leave, he was left with one option: change the neighborhood’s cultural landscape. “It was self-preservation and [preserva- tion] of our neighborhood,” Garza said. “As an architect, I influence the environment every single day. There’s no reason we can’t do it in our home.” He started looking at property records, tracking down owners and cold calling. He put seven buildings under contract at one time without funding. Until his bank loans were approved, Garza was wiring money di- rectly from his bank account to owners all over the country. “My rationale was that I had to have a critical mass of change,” Garza said. “You cannot change the gravitas with one build- ing. It doesn’t matter if you renovate one building, and everything around it is a slum. You had to have a critical mass.” Garza started sketching new plans for the dilapidated spaces. He visited nine banks be- fore the tenth saw the potential of the spaces. “I’ll never forget, a woman from the bank, Cookie, called me and said, ‘Do you really think you can turn these total pieces of shit into what the rendering shows?” Garza said yes, and the properties were fully renovated within 22 months. King’s Highway became a conservation district in 1988, so when he started purchasing build- ings in 2000, he couldn’t alter the exteriors at all, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t exercise his creative freedom inside. He turned eight- plexes into buildings with two-story lofts, and transformed studios into expansive one- bedroom units, while restoring the homes to their former glory. The first building took four months to fill. Now his nine, soon to be 10, historic properties have wait lists. When Garza bought the buildings, as many as five people were living in each mi- cro-unit. Some tenants could stargaze through the holes in their ceilings. The walls smelled from a century of dust and mold, and the wood was rotting. In a word, the spaces were uninhabitable. To counter the displacement of so many people, Garza of- fered all the tenants four weeks of free rent. Then after he was done gutting the building, he raised the rent. It was the most expensive in the neighborhood at the time. No unit is exactly the same, and the rent and layouts vary significantly. A two-bed- room, 1,000-square-foot apartment that holds four is at the highest end of the scale, and a 500-square-foot studio is on the oppo- site end. According to a tenant who rented in 2023, rent was between $1,000 and $2,000, depending on the unit. Compara- tively, a fully loaded 600-square-foot studio with workspaces, covered parking, a dog park and a first-level pilates studio in Bishop Arts can run about $1,300 per month. “I completely gutted the building down to the ground and redesigned it because I’m a cursed anal bastard architect,” he said. Behind the plaster, galvanized iron pipes were replaced by their modern alternatives. In the apartments, archways were rebuilt and crown molding was replaced. Garza made kitchenettes with fully updated appli- ances. Cabinets that touch the 10-foot ceil- ings and windows that line the perimeter are nods to the commonplace construction elements from the time of construction. A year later, on the same road, Aves dis- embowled his own 75-year-old building. The arched doorway of the Tudor building hides eight identical units split by a hallway that runs in a straight line from the front door to the back. Most of the quarters on King’s Highway follow the same structure, two floors of four adjacent units. The swooping curves of the roof reach high into the branches of the sprawling tree in the front yard. Jackson often worries the old limbs might crash through the windows that cover most of the front wall of her unit. Her bed is flush with the oddly sized windows, which are peculiarly tall and not as wide as today’s standard residential win- dows. To the left of her bed is a wide vintage dresser, on the right is a sliding-door closet. Before Aves renovated, the closet was a Murphy bed. Aves limited occupancy to two people, but the small apartment was once filled to the brim. Mattresses covered the floors, and every inch went to use. He bought the building from an elderly woman in the bottom unit. She charged ten- ants weekly rent, and rarely, if ever, checked on the condition of the apartments. Aves ripped out everything, save for the original wood flooring, or at least 85% of it, he esti- mates. A history buff, he poured himself into the background of the building. He rebuilt the old covered porch, even matching, as closely as he could, the old ACME bricks originally used. Aves wanted to add glass blocks to the front of the house, and the his- torical society made him prove they were historically faithful. So he bought old Archi- tectural Digest magazines from the ’20s and ’30s, and now the glass block windows dis- tinguish the building from its neighbors. “The only building in our nearest vicinity, that’s probably in its original state, and I’m really surprised that they allow him to keep it in that condition, is the blue building next door,” said Aves. Almost all the residences along the road have been purchased by landlords like Garza and Aves, or by single-family homeowners. The place next to Aves’ building is one of the last remaining unrefurbished buildings there. Garza has been eyeing the property for years, but he says the owners won’t sell. It’s now a dingy shade of blue with peeling paint that once was much brighter, and a “for rent” sign sitting in the front yard. It’s been there for months. Aves reported the building to the city for an illegal fence and stock piling junk in the strip of land that sep- arates their properties. The structure still houses families. “It’s disheartening in a way, because I had to displace some of these families who were handicapped or elderly parents, and the other people worked menial jobs,” said Aves. “I tried to do my best to help them, as a realtor, try to help them find another place. But a lot of them didn’t have documentation. A lot of them didn’t trust me because I was the new owner. I had to displace pretty much everybody.” More Quarters in Dallas T he city has seemingly fought to keep disparate socioeconomic levels from coexisting to prevent renters from tainting the old money structure of the city. A city ordinance modified the code after World War II and outlawed homeowners from renting out secondary structures, or Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs), at the rear of their properties. These days, the buildings are known as “Granny flats” by city government types. Some of the spaces, in the words of the original ordinance, were “bona fide servant’s quarters not for rent,” and others are new builds. They are scattered across the city, and though a minor solution to the greater issues that make up the affordable housing crisis, many are still unused. “There was an uproar because people did have those, and there was a need for hous- ing,” Firsching said. In 2018, a unanimous vote allowed home- owners to rent out ADUs if certain conditions were met. And there are lots of conditions. First, the homeowner must submit a request to the city for an ADU. Then, there’s a neigh- borhood commission, where at least 10 sur- rounding property owners gather to discuss the proposed ADU. Other stipulations in- clude off-street parking, density, home- owner requirements, affordability and the impact on property values. So even though servant quarters exist on the back lots of old properties, legally renting them is not the simple solution that it could be. The need for housing predates the ordi- nances that kept the housing shortage alive and well. When World War I ended, Unfair Park from p4 Inside an apartment in the rehabbed Kings Cross building on King’s Highway. Architect Rick Garza stands in a renovated staircase in a building he owns and rehabbed. Nathan Hunsinger Nathan Hunsinger >> p8
