If a Tree Falls in Deep Ellum, Will the City Hear It?
Posted by Cindy on January 25th, 2007
The saga continues…from the desk of Kenny Brattain Owner of Fat Daddy’s Sound Shack…
After what happened today (READ BELOW). I AM REALLY PISSED!
Why couldn’t the city have told us about the “non-paying” parking. Now we have heard two different answers about the parking from two different city officials. That being said, I AM GOING TO FIGHT LIKE HELL to get this resolved. I can only do so much, if you would like to help me please call the Mayor’s office and let them know that there is a REAL music scene in Dallas and you do not want Deep Ellum to die. Her is her office number: LAURA MILLER, Mayor of Dallas, Phone: (214) 670-4054 and ask for Norman Herrera or Laura Miller.
THANK YOU CITY OF DALLAS, YOU WIN!! WE GIVE UP! WE WILL NOT RE-OPEN THE ?TREES? BUILDING!
To whom this may concern, we have successfully filed our SUP for 2707-09 Elm Street, Deep Ellum. I personally spent over 2 days and over $1,300 filing for the SUP. Our SUP was accepted, and now we have to wait for the Dallas City Council to vote on it. That will take about 3 months; meanwhile we are paying rent on a building we cannot use.
BUT WAIT, THERE IS MORE!!!! THIS IS WHAT DID IT!!!
Of course, after we have spent the money with the city filing the SUP we are now told we need an SUP for the PARKING LOT.
David Cossum told us that under the new SUP law, we had to have 50 parking spaces. We only have 20. So we contracted with an independent parking lot owner to supply us 30 more spaces. We had planned on paying for the additional expense by charging to park in Deep Ellum, like everyone else does, even the City of Dallas.
Now we are told that we cannot charge for parking. So the 20 parking spaces we have, we cannot charge for, and we cannot charge for the contracted 30 remote parking spaces.
So the bottom line is this. We are being told that we need 50 parking spaces. We have 20 parking spaces, so we are renting the remote parking spaces for an additional $3,000 a month, and we will not be able to offset the expense because we can not charge to park. PLUS, we have to file another SUP for the Parking Lot and wait the 3 months for approval.
This makes this re-opening economically impossible. We are not a huge corporation; we are a small Mom/Pop business.
Well, City of Dallas, you did it. We are planning on not going forward with re-opening the ?Trees? building. I guess we will look at a city that cares about its citizens and the local music scene. Good luck.
P.S. ATTN: City of Dallas! How come you can charge to park, but we cannot. ALSO THIS IS A WARNING TO ANYONE WHO WANTS TO OPEN A ?LIVE MUSIC VENUE? IN DEEP ELLUM, THAT IS NOT A CHURCH. DON?T DO IT. THE CITY OF DALLAS WILL NOT LET YOU!!
Thank you for your time,
Kenny Brattain Owner Fat Daddy?s Sound Shack http://www.fatdaddyssoundshack.com
If you want to try and stop the city, I guess all you can do is call the Mayor. LAURA MILLER, Mayor of Dallas, Phone: (214) 670-4054.
January 27th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
[...] Deep ellum is slowly dying. Clubs have been shutting down left and right. And now Dallas is making new club owners jump through hoops just to open up at all. Club trees is/was a landmark on the deep ellum music and entertainment scene has been shutdown for a while now, but the owners of a club in Lewisville bought trees and were trying to open it back up, under a different name of course. But now apparently may have to back out because of the red tape dallas causing. Here’s a excerpt from http://www.finelivelive.com [...]
February 15th, 2007 at 11:21 pm
I think one thing the city should do is take a hint from Ft. Worth and have free parking on the meters and any city owned lots in the evenings. Yes, Deep Ellum seems to have other problems, too, but free parking just makes it more inviting.
April 15th, 2009 at 7:12 am
After reading the article, I feel that I need more information on the topic. Could you suggest some more resources ?