UTA students rethink downtown Dallas future
The 15-minute city is an urban planning concept where everything you need is a short walk or bike ride away from home.
A group of architecture students at The University of Texas at Arlington believe downtown Dallas has the potential to be such a city—similar to walkable European cities like Paris or Barcelona. Dallas leaders are weighing a future downtown that includes a new arena for the Dallas Mavericks. And there remains considerable debate whether to include the iconic City Hall building in those plans or to raze it and redevelop that downtown site.
Building a new arena, along with the new Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center expected to open in 2029, could serve to transform downtown Dallas, students said. They showcased their vision with an architectural model of a reimagined downtown built around connection, activity and people.
Their master plan divides the area into three primary zones—an entertainment district anchored by the arena, a civic and cultural district, and surrounding residential areas—tied together by a pedestrian-focused “green loop” designed for walking and gathering.
“This whole design kind of centers on this green loop idea where it’s a public pedestrian walking zone that ties everything together,” said Michelle Estrada, a fourth-year architecture student. “The biggest thing we wanted to keep in mind was creating a people-centered design."
The plan prioritizes activity in each zone, especially the civic and cultural district, where public plazas, cultural spaces and retail are designed to keep foot traffic active throughout the day, not just during major events.
Students said that without intentional planning, a new arena risks becoming another isolated development, as was the case with the American Airlines Center when it opened on the western edge of downtown in 2001.
“If we were just to stick an arena downtown, it would become underutilized during non-game days,” said Daniel Maldonado Orozco, a senior in architecture and landscape architecture. “The space is going to end up being a dead zone.”
Instead, their proposal blends residential, retail, entertainment and civic uses throughout the district to ensure it remains active day and night. The plan also responds to existing conditions in downtown Dallas, where large stretches of land remain underutilized and disconnected.
“With the new convention center being planned alone at the moment, there won’t be much to do,” Estrada said. “If someone were to come for a convention, they would have to get a cab or rideshare and go further into town.”
To address that, students focused on creating a place people can stay, easily navigate and spend time, whether they live in the area or are visiting.
“We analyzed all the roads and how people are moving in and out of the actual city,” said Rhea Lanawan Tabora, an architecture student graduating in May. “We did roads, land use, green spaces, urban gaps.”
Through their research, students identified issues such as lack of sidewalks, limited tree canopy and infrastructure that prioritizes cars over pedestrians.
“There are issues that we often overlook, mainly because we’re used to them,” Tabora said. “Just because we’re used to it, it doesn’t mean that it’s OK.”
For many students, the project was especially meaningful because it focused on a place they know well.
“We haven’t worked on a project of this scale,” Tabora said. “And it’s in our hometown.”
They hope their work shows that transforming downtown Dallas doesn’t require starting from scratch.
“You don’t need to have a clean slate to begin with,” Tabora said. “We can work with what we have and what’s coming.”
That real-world challenge is exactly what the professors hoped the students would take on.
The UTA architecture studio is led by adjunct professors Carlos Alba, Jason Wheeler and Eduardo Castaneda. They have taught together at UTA for the past three years while working professionally across the architecture industry.
“We were thinking about what our next project was going to be,” said Castaneda, an associate principal at Arcadis. “Since this was happening in our backyard, we had to jump on it.”
The project began with the redevelopment of the Dallas convention center site, which will leave behind a large amount of open land. Alba, a senior designer at Perkins&Will, said the class started by asking how that land could better connect downtown.
“That is going to be all empty land,” Alba said. “So we were asking ourselves, how can we plan it so it doesn’t only integrate with downtown, but links to South Dallas and the Cedars?”
“We need to take a stab at this and show people why we don’t need to start with a blank slate,” Alba continued. “We can fit everything they want to do and create something beautiful and vibrant without demolishing City Hall.”
For the professors, the assignment was about more than design; it was about teaching students how to think at the scale of a large city. That included introducing data-driven design methods, from analyzing weather and noise to studying transportation and infrastructure patterns.
“We analyzed all these different specific data points so we could data-prove within our design,” said Wheeler, a design technologist at Gensler, an architecture firm.
Students also experienced the project beyond the classroom by visiting the area, touring City Hall and walking downtown streets to understand the challenges firsthand.
“They get real architects on a real architecture problem in something that’s so close, right in their backyard,” Wheeler said.
Castaneda said the experience helps students understand that architecture is ultimately about solving complex, real-world problems through collaboration.
“Dallas was built around the model of vehicular transport,” Alba said. “We’re trying to take a step back and find the balance; specifically, we’re looking at that 15-minute city planning strategy.”
For both students and professors, the vision is simple: a downtown that people don’t just pass through, but one they choose to live in.
“It’s about creating something that you fall in love with and want to be in,” Alba said.
About The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA)
The University of Texas at Arlington is a growing public research university in the heart of Dallas-Fort Worth. With a student body of over 42,700, UTA is the second-largest institution in the University of Texas System, offering more than 180 undergraduate and graduate degree programs. Recognized as a Carnegie R-1 university, UTA stands among the nation’s top 5% of institutions for research activity. UTA and its 280,000 alumni generate an annual economic impact of $28.8 billion for the state. The University has received the Innovation and Economic Prosperity designation from the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities and has earned recognition for its focus on student access and success, considered key drivers to economic growth and social progress for North Texas and beyond.