Welcome to the
HEART OF ARLINGTON Neighborhood Association Arlington, Texas
Welcome to the
National Night Out (NNO) 2025 - Coming up october 7
Neighborhood Connectedness
With all of the strife and violence happening in our country, perhaps one of the best ways we can help preserve our communities is actually getting to know each other a little better! On October 7, we get a chance to do that with National Night Out, a kid-friendly program designed to encourage neighbors to socialize and become more comfortable with the folks we pay to protect us - our first responders like police officers and fire fighters. Here in HANA, two options exist for you, at First Christian Church on Collins Street, and the Arlington Optimists clubhouse and baseball fields on Mary Street. We encourage you to participate in either - or both!
First Christian Church or Arlington Optimists - your choice or both; 5-7pm
- First Christian Church at 910 S. Collins St. is offering hot dogs, hamburgers, and beverages plus a piñata competition from 5-7pm. Their event is co-sponsored by the Arlington Hispanic Citizens Police Academy Alumni Association.
- Arlington Optimists at the baseball fields on Third and Mary Streets downtown is offering hamburgers as well - plus games - starting at 6:30pm.
Significant Redevelopment Likely around E. 3rd and center St
HANA has been involved at this site for years...
You might not be aware of it, but a diverse collection of old houses around Center and Third streets have recently been boarded-up, across from the UTA campus. Those structures will likely be torn down for new apartment development. And yes, this includes the one-story house with its iconic petrified wood border around its front lawn (pictured).
For at least a decade, properties at this intersection have been involved in a series of high-density apartment proposals by private developers: Upwards of 900 units in mid-rise towers squeezed into a footprint that would cause parking chaos and require buildings with poor sightlines and practically zero privacy.
To date, each proposal has been rejected by a mixture of city boards and HANA. That's the good news. The unsettling news is this: UTA is now in the process of taking the lead on this site, meaning that not only will these homes likely be demolished, but that private citizens like you and us will lose our say over yet another chunk of central Arlington. You see, once UTA buys property, not only does it come off of our our tax rolls, but the community has almost no input over what gets done with it.
Like we've done for the past decade, HANA plans on at least monitoring this situation. Despite the rhetoric these days about affordable housing for all, UTA-sprawl has become one of the biggest causes of an affordable housing drain in our part of town (student housing doesn't count).
We readily acknowledge that UTA leadership has indeed been patiently waiting for private developers to build something reasonable on this site. Unfortunately, private developers have not done that. Nobody has been willing to generate creative ways of saving some of these more classic houses while retrofitting those properties to leverage property value increases. Then again, nobody can deny that this site is also very important to UTA. Their Event Center, Welcome Center, and the campus' northeastern gateway need to have development that enhances the campus experience. Right now, HANA is hoping a high-rise dorm tower is NOT what UTA thinks could enhance their campus experience!
Issues like this are why HANA exists. We understand change happens, especially in this part of the country, where population growth is straining us all. We also understand that just because a building is old, that doesn't necessarily make it historic and worthy of preservation. Nevertheless, we want to take advantage of opportunities we have to steer our various responses to redevelopment in ways that benefit everybody, not just the 900-apartment-unit folks.
Stay tuned...!
