DALLAS — An early proving ground for Texas to tackle the state’s housing affordability problem — and the pushback those efforts often generate — sits at an aging shopping center in North Dallas.
Large stretches of storefronts at Pepper Square sit empty. Signs from a touring Harry Potter exhibition that closed in May still hang from a former Stein Mart where the attraction was housed. Cars pack the parking spaces of a Trader Joe’s and an indoor trampoline park, but wide swaths of the lot sit deserted.
The center’s owner saw an opportunity to revive the flagging retail strip with hundreds of apartments as well as new shops and restaurants. Nearby homeowners saw the threat of a looming high-rise over their neighborhoods…