A new concrete batch plan will not go up near a soccer park in Northwest Dallas.
The Dallas City Council on Wednesday failed to override the city plan commission’s earlier denial of J Imperium LLC’s application to build a plant a few hundred feet from MoneyGram Soccer Park. After hours of deliberation and public testimony, 10 council members voted to approve the application, falling short of what was needed for it to pass.
District 6 Council Member Omar Narvaez, who represents the area where the field is located, was one of four council members who joined Mayor Eric Johnson in voting to reject the application.
"I've been very very public about what I was going to do which is listen to my community and vote the way they told me,” Narvaez said. “That's my job as representative.”
J Imperium is a Black-owned business that has had projects in places like Klyde Warren Park and Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. The area around the soccer park is zoned for industrial use.
Supporters who spoke in favor of the plant included Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price, as well as J Imperium CEO BJ Johnson’s father, Willis Johnson. He asked the city council why his son’s business is different from the other batch plants in the area.
“J Imperium did not move into a residential district,” Johnson said. “It moved into an area zoned for batch plants.”
BJ Johnson echoed similar sentiments and said he has done everything city staff has asked him to do.
"I didn't build the soccer fields,” Johnson, a former University of Texas wide receiver, said. “All I wanna do is operate a business. I have a number of different city of Dallas contracts that I wanna send mud to, but I can't do that if I'm not operating.”
Advocates who rallied against the batch plant argued it would expose children to poor air quality.
“With the lion's share of users being children and young people, we should all be concerned by the cumulative effect of multiple industrial operations,” said FC Dallas President Daniel Hunt.
FC Dallas manages the soccer park with the city. The complex, opened in 2014, was built on top of a former gravel pit and landfill.
District 4 council member Carolyn King Arnold questioned why the park was even built so close to an industrial zone.
“There is no way in the world that I would willingly subject children and people in general, adults, to any area that are strongly contaminated,” she said.
But, she said, Johnson “followed legal avenues” in submitting his application for a new plant.
“He's asking for our support,” she said. “I would hope that we're able to get him across the mark.”
Priscilla Rice is KERA’s communities reporter. Got a tip? Email her at price@kera.org.
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