Byron Nelson Golf Tournament Settling Into New Southern Dallas Venue

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - The Byron Nelson Golf Tournament's new home is being celebrated as a hole in one for Southern Dallas expansion and development. The Trinity Forest Golf Club sits on a former city landfill in far Southeast Dallas, along Loop 12, east of Interstate 45.

The road is now called Great Trinity Forest Parkway. The golf course is also deemed a landmark moment for igniting development along the banks of Trinity River, south of downtown.

"Legitimacy. To have AT&T, the PGA, and great organizations say, we want to do this in southern Dallas says Southern Dallas has come of age," Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said Monday.

Rawlings' Grow South campaign has advocated for investment, development and redevelopment in the vast section of the city known as Southern Dallas.

Over the years, everything from a Walmart Superstore in the Glen Oaks area of South Oak Cliff, to revitalization and rebuilding in the Cedars neighborhood just south of the Dallas Convention Center, the movement to promote growth in all areas of Southern Dallas continues. The TFGC is expected to bring over 300,000 visitors to Southern Dallas this week.

"We aren't in the development business. But, what we can do, and what we will do is bring a quarter million people to this area that clearly have never been here (Southern Dallas) before," golf tournament coordinator and Dallas Salesmanship Club chair Eddy Moore said. Just to the north of the new course sits the Pemberton Hill neighborhood. The six-decade old area is lined with houses with security burglar bars affixed to entrances.

Resident Jennifer Hutchinson has seen the buildup of the golf course, along with the Trinity Audubon Center just down the road. She says the new development in her part of the city is a warning sign. Land speculators are sending letters. Real estate investors are knocking on doors.

Hutchison and her next door neighbor suggest new development will not focus on neighborhood needs and concerns. "I feel like this. They should have done this years ago for the community. This growth is about moving us out, not moving us up," she said.