As the 50-mile trail system that will revolutionize how Dallasites move through the city nears completion, the organization that runs the trail received a gift to create its front porch. The Loop Plaza will serve as a statement piece for the trail network, and the Addy Foundation’s $5 million gift is making it a reality.
The Loop Dallas is a nonprofit that has been working with the city for more than 10 years to make the 50-mile circuit encircling the heart of Dallas a reality. The $135 million public-private partnership is the brainchild of Stream Realty executive Jeff Ellerman, who has worked since 2014 to connect the disparate trail networks throughout the city into a comprehensive system, linking neighborhoods, commercial centers, and greenspace via paved trails throughout the city.
The circuit will cover two-thirds of Dallas and allow riders and pedestrians to see White Rock Lake, the Trinity Forest, the Trinity River, the Katy Trail, the Design District, and Victory Park without leaving the trail.
Ten years and more than $100 million later, The Loop is nearing completion. By the end of the year, Ellerman says that the city will have completed or broken ground on five of the seven trail sections.
In conjunction with the ongoing capital campaign this fall, The Loop celebrated the Addy Foundation’s $5 million gift to bring The Loop Plaza to life. Lydia and William Addy founded The Addy Foundation in 2001, the same year William founded ISN Software. “We live in a community that’s got certain advantages.,” he said. “The trail goes through a lot of communities that don’t have the same advantages that we have. But we’re connected. We get a chance to ride through them.”
Located at the end of the Katy Trail near Victory Park, Ellerman calls the plaza The Loop’s front porch. It will create a new green space that joins Katy Trail with the new Hi-Line Connector, a one-mile strip that extends through Victory Park and the Design District and connects with the Trinity Strand Trail, which runs parallel to the river.
A retaining wall along Victory Avenue will become the open space, and the trail will be topped by several arches created by Dallas-based landscape architect and design firm TBG Partners. Ellerman says the undulating archways needed to be beautiful, timeless, weatherproof, safe, and porous–no easy task for the designers and Loop staff, who have been working on it for three to four years.
“It’s very experiential as you go underneath it, and it changes and looks different as you move through it,” Ellerman says. The plaza is one example of functional, public art throughout the trail system. Construction on the plaza is set to begin in the next few months, and the trail will be diverted during construction.
The Loop is far from the only responsibility on Ellerman’s plate. Last month, he moved from vice chairman at the world’s largest commercial real estate firm, CBRE, to executive vice chairman at Dallas-based Stream Realty Partners. He is also board chair of the Dallas Museum of Art and has been a director of SMU’s Cox School of Business.
“I basically have three jobs right now, but I’m in the time of my life where I can do that,” he says. “I can use my experience, my skills, and my relationships and make a change and make the city a better place.”
Working with the city, planning construction in massive flood planes in the Trinity Forest, balancing multiple funding sources, and carving a new trail through the city are not without their challenges. But Ellerman says the organization is a well-oiled machine that knows how to work with the stakeholders and get the job done. He is optimistic that adequate funds will be raised and The Loop will be completed in the next couple of years.
“We are a change agent that everyone can use,” Ellerman says. “It’s about health and wellness, green space, and getting out and exploring our city. We are connecting Dallas to Dallas.”
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