Downtown Arlington’s transformation has been visible from Kris Landrith’s office window.

Year by year, ever since Landrith opened his law firm off Abram Street in the 1970s, he’s watched the area evolve from what he described as “a street with very little construction and a lot of vacant lots.” 

Today, downtown Arlington is a corridor of often bustling streets lined with new restaurants, apartments, small businesses and bars. Most weekend nights, live music echoes from nearby outdoor concerts, and the area regularly hosts festivals that bring in tens of thousands of attendees.

The change didn’t come overnight — or by accident. It’s the result of Downtown Arlington’s intentional strides toward becoming a walkable, urbanized city center over the past three decades. 

The Downtown Arlington Management Corporation is a nonprofit tasked with managing the area and collaborating with the city, property owners and business owners. Since the organization’s formation in 2006, it’s spearheaded many of the city’s efforts to revitalize its downtown.

Downtown now sees 1.7 million annual visitors, according to data presented at the 2024 Downtown Arlington Annual Meeting on Sept. 18. Since 2014, the area has seen 38 new public art pieces and 31 new restaurants. Property values have increased by 168%, and downtown jobs have more than doubled. 

As the organization’s leaders embraced their recent successes at the annual meeting, they acknowledged that downtown’s future will still bring challenges that must be met with strategic planning and community investment. 

Downtown Arlington’s shift toward walkability started in the 1990s, when the U.S. saw the start of a cultural shift toward walkable urbanism. After urban planners spent the last half of the 20th century building cities around large, inner city roads and car dependency, communities craved a return to walkable density.

This shift has transformed suburban downtowns across the country. The annual meeting’s keynote speaker, Christopher Leinberger coined the movement the “urbanization of suburbs.”

Leinberger, one of the nation’s leading authorities on urban development and walkability, said achieving suburban walkability works best under privately owned, place management organizations like Downtown Arlington, which act as partners to local governments instead of branches of them.

Maggie Campbell, CEO of Downtown Arlington, told the Report that when she moved to the city to take up Arlington’s downtown revitalization efforts in 2006, her work was cut out for her.

“This was the ultimate challenge: to make a downtown where there isn’t one,” she said. “It’s not like there was a street grid here and historic buildings and office towers. It’s not a typical downtown; it’s a redevelopment downtown.”

She traces that redevelopment to 2004, when the city started renovations of downtown’s Center Street. Improving the streetscape of the area of Vandergriff Town Center quickly attracted private investors, it’s now home to Arlington Music Hall, Babe’s Chicken and Grease Monkey Burger Shop. 

In 2007, downtown Arlington’s growth was again fueled by the opening of Levitt Pavilion — an outdoor concert venue known for its free live music.

“The minute construction started, I had restaurant prospects walking in the door wanting to know where they could get space nearby,” Campbell said.

More recently, she’s worked with city officials and developers to invest in Abram Street. The road cuts straight through downtown, and efforts have brought several apartments and new businesses since 2018. In the past 10 years, the number of downtown residents has grown from 400 to about 4,200, according to numbers presented at the annual meeting. 

Dan Dipert, a longtime Arlington resident and local philanthropist, moved near downtown Arlington 12 years ago. The area’s walkability was a key incentive, he said. 

Since he moved, Dipert has watched the area attract more businesses and visitors, and he said he’s glad to see more people walking through the streets each evening. From his house near the University of Texas at Arlington’s western campus, he walks to restaurants, cafes, festivals and church.

“I don’t have to go too far,” Dipert, who’s in his 80s, said with a shrug.

Leinberger said that as Arlington embraces urbanization, its main challenge is to connect the city’s three central hubs: Downtown Arlington, UT-Arlington and the city’s entertainment district, which holds several museums, Globe Life Field and AT&T Stadium.

Campbell said she thinks building connections to the entertainment district, which is about a mile away, will take significant public investments from city officials, she said.

Collins Street — the central road connecting downtown Arlington and the entertainment district — must be made into a walkable, bikeable, comfortable corridor, she said. 

“If we just sit back and wait for that to happen, I don’t know that it ever will,” Campbell said. “We need intentional moves, whether it’s through planning, zoning, incentives or whatever.”

The two areas have proven themselves as independent economic engines, she said. Now, the city must decide what to do with the space in between, which is currently a mix of single-family neighborhoods, gas stations, parking lots and a few restaurants. 

“It is literally a mile as the crow flies, and in any other city in the world that should be walkable,” Campbell said. “But it’s the fabric that you’re walking through that’s not comfortable. Whether it’s safe or not isn’t even the issue. It’s ‘how comfortable is it to walk?’”

The city has recently started initiatives to transform the entertainment district’s image. In March, the Arlington Museum of Art, which was previously located downtown, opened in a new location down the street from Choctaw Stadium. The developing National Medal of Honor Museum will open in 2025 as its neighbor.

The two new museums in the area helped lead to Arlington’s efforts to make the entertainment district into the city’s second state-designated Cultural District. Officials are currently working on their application for the designation.

Landrith, the attorney off Abram Street, said he sees the walkable corridor between downtown Arlington and the entertainment district in Arlington’s probable future. It will only take time — likely not within the lifespan of some property owners who currently call the area home — for the infrastructure along Collins to be built, he said.

But he’s optimistic. From his downtown law firm’s desk, he’s seen crazier transformations.

Drew Shaw is a reporting fellow for the Arlington Report. Contact him at drew.shaw@fortworthreport.org or @shawlings601. At the Arlington Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.