The city of Garland, Texas, has invested significantly in recent years to revitalize its infrastructure. 

In 2019 and again in 2025, Garland voters passed a combined total of nearly $800M in bonds to upgrade the city’s streets, parks, public safety, community buildings and award-winning downtown square. These investments have helped reshape a city long known for its industrial base into a growing destination for residents, businesses and visitors alike.

Now, Garland is looking beyond downtown for its next wave of growth.

“Three years ago, Garland received a designation from the Texas Commission on the Arts as a cultural district,” Garland Cultural Arts Director Amy Rosenthal said. “This is a prestigious designation, and with the recent redevelopment of our downtown square, we've really been thinking about the potential to expand the bounds of this district.”

A gem in Garland’s cultural district is the Granville Arts Center, just one block off the downtown square, Rosenthal said. It is one of the city's most significant cultural landmarks, hosting more than 550 shows yearly and attracting more than 75,000 visitors. Built in the 1980s as one of Dallas-Fort Worth’s first suburban performing arts venues, the center will undergo a renovation in 2027 to upgrade its HVAC, electrical and sound systems. This project is expected to cost $25M as part of the city’s 2025 bond program.

“When our facility is renovated, it's just going to take it to the next level and be more accessible for all audiences, whether they’re coming to see legendary singers like Mavis Staples or a local theater production,” Rosenthal said.

It is estimated that the Granville Arts Center alone generates $18M in local economic impact, with visitors from more than 29 states attending shows within the past year.

This traffic has created spillover economic activity for dozens of nearby restaurants and retailers, such as the artsy Café Frida, named in honor of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, and Fortunate Son, a New Haven, Connecticut-style pizzeria.

“We've seen a huge rise in interest in this area within the past year,” Rosenthal said. “Our hope is to build on this momentum and soon establish a boutique hotel that would provide visitors a place to stay next to this great destination. It would really help enhance the experience when visitors come to enjoy our arts scene.”

Garland’s cultural arts district doesn’t stop at the Granville Arts Center. Just beyond it is the North Fifth Street corridor, which is home to the popular pottery studio FCS Clayworks. The city also purchased a 12K SF warehouse that it plans to convert to an artist incubator, with a black-box theater, exhibition space and smaller studio workshops. Garland spent roughly four years studying the North Texas market, looking for ways to provide artists with studio space that was ideally located but also financially attainable, Rosenthal said. 

“There are a lot of creatives in the Garland area, and this will be a great way to amplify their work,” Rosenthal said. 

But the city doesn’t see the incubator or the art center renovations as the end goal. While these are key components to help downtown Garland flourish, the city is also hoping to attract new businesses and new residents to gather and set up shop.

“Artists tend to congregate in certain areas, so we hope that with the spark of our art incubator and studios, we’ll see other assets come to fruition along the street as well,” Rosenthal said.

The city’s vision is to create a more walkable district with vibrant retail, hospitality, entertainment and arts uses.

Part of this vision involves investment in the streetscapes and infrastructure along Fifth Street, Rosenthal said. The city is budgeting almost $8M for this project, which will include improvements to pedestrian lighting, brick paving of crosswalks, landscaping, signage and wayfinding.

The city has also implemented strategic redevelopment plans, such as its Garland on the Rise 10-year plan and accompanying housing strategy, to attract private investment, strengthen neighborhoods and support economic growth.

A core piece of the city’s housing strategy going forward is to build out more than 2,500 housing units in and around the downtown area over the next 10 years, with multifamily development being a big piece of the equation. The goal is to create a substantial population near the square to support all of the restaurants and businesses that call Garland home.

As the city sees a lot of these projects start to come to fruition, there is no better time for investors and developers to get involved and make their mark on the city, Rosenthal said. North Fifth Street’s proximity to the downtown square, dozens of restaurants and shops, and the city’s downtown DART light rail station makes it a prime area for investment.

“Our new square, our arts scene, and all of our independent shops and dining institutions are really turning heads,” she said. “We want to give folks an authentic experience, and breathing new life into so many aspects of our city will open the door for us to do that in so many different ways.”

This article was produced in collaboration between the city of Garland and Studio B. Bisnow news staff was not involved in the production of this content. 

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