
New restaurants, cafes, and apartment buildings have sprung up in recent years around the home-decor showrooms and warehouses that have been a fixture in this neighborhood, with its enviable proximity to downtown and easy highway access to points north and south. It’s an evolution still under way that doesn’t project to stop anytime soon.
The neighborhood’s redevelopment has occurred organically — no cookie-cutter master-planning here. Apartments have filled in and around the existing industrial buildings; warehouses and showrooms have closed and reopened as restaurants.
The Design District attracts industrious types aiming to open their own shops or those who simply find it invigorating to live in a creative environment so close to the activity of downtown. It’s also become a burgeoning entertainment district, so those who prefer a quieter lifestyle might want to look elsewhere.
Dallas was once the third-largest garment center in the country, and today a new generation of entrepreneurs are putting the city’s sewing machines back to work. The Design District has been their launching pad.
The Design District looks much the same as it has for 40 years, even as it has evolved to include nationally recognized restaurants.
The Design District aims to become what developers like to call a “live-work-play environment.”
The area’s art and design reputation lend it a cool factor.
You won’t find national chains, mixed-use developments, or the razing of buildings here.
The neighborhood is increasingly one of the city’s premier shopping destinations.
But it has none of the hubbub of NorthPark or the glitz of Highland Park Village.
What you have is a new neighborhood emerging from the existing one, yet not trampling it in the process.
The 2016 population of Design District is estimated to be 1,932. That’s a change of +16.2% in the last five years. Over the next five years, the population is projected to change by +1.5%.
The number of households is 220, a change of +118.1% in the last five years. In the next five years, the number of households is projected to change +16.7%.
The average household size is 1.35.
The median household income is $80,263 and, of the entire population age 16 and over, 84.7% aren’t in the labor force. 1.3% of families live below the poverty line.
Among those employed, 10.8% are blue-collar workers, 68.9% are white-collar workers, and 20.3% are occupied as service industry or farm workers.
The average commute time for workers who live in this area is 20.0 minutes. The average number of vehicles per household is 1.4.
1.3% of Design District homes are detached, single-family houses. The median owner-occupied home value is $248,000
2.0% of the homes are owner-occupied. The average length of residence among residents in owner-occupied homes is 13.8 years, while the average renter has been in the same home 3.6 years.
The median year the area’s housing units were built is 2011.
Design District includes portions of these police beats: 516, 517
Throughout those beats during 2014, there were:
Aggravated Assaults (non-family violence) | 11 |
Aggravated Assaults (family violence) | 2 |
Business Burglaries | 38 |
Home Burglaries | 18 |
Motor-Vehicle Burglaries | 254 |
Auto Thefts | 68 |
Business Robberies | 10 |
Robberies of Individuals | 8 |
Shoplifting Incidents | 6 |
Other Thefts | 109 |
Murders | 0 |
Rapes | 7 |
Dallas ISD Esperanza Medrano Elementary | 72 |
Dallas ISD North Dallas High School | 57 |
Dallas ISD Thomas J. Rusk Middle School | 47 |