Live in Deep Ellum

Deep Ellum grew up along Elm Street east of downtown, where freed people settled after the Civil War and the Texas and Pacific met the Houston and Texas Central in 1873. Cotton gin works, Ford's assembly plant and warehouses filled the blocks toward Trunk Avenue. On Elm Street, by the Handbook of Texas's count, twelve nightclubs, cafes and domino parlors were open in 1920, and Blind Lemon Jefferson's records sold across the country from 1926. The streetcar stopped in 1956, and Central Expressway took the 2400 block of Elm. This guide covers the Deep Ellum Public Improvement District, about 362 acres between Interstate 345, the Green Line and Interstate 30, which the Deep Ellum Foundation runs and the City has renewed to the end of 2035.

The history is listed, and the zoning still allows towers. Nineteen City landmarks and landmark districts sit inside the line, from the Continental Gin complex and the Sons of Hermann Hall, both designated in 1987, to the Knights of Pythias Temple, and since 30 June 2023 about 113 acres have been the Deep Ellum Historic District on the National Register. Around them the rule for about seven-tenths of the district is PD 269, passed in April 1987: up to 200 feet, a floor area ratio of 4.0 that can rise to 6.0 with homes in the mix, and no parking for the first five apartments made inside a building older than June 1984.

Every bar needs a permit, and the permits expire. Under PD 269 a bar, a dance hall or a live music venue needs a specific use permit from the Council, and the right to run one without it ended in December 2007. The City's April 2026 report on a bar at Crowdus and Elm Streets lists nearby permits approved for one, three and five years since 2022, and the City Plan Commission recommended one year for that one. The police set hours too. Dallas police began barricading streets on Friday and Saturday nights in March 2025, and on 31 July 2025 they said streets from Main to Indiana and from Good-Latimer to Malcolm X would close to cars at 10 p.m. for the foreseeable future, where busy-season closures had begun at midnight. This guide found no police crime figure drawn to the district's boundary and quotes none.

The census counted renters, and the towers kept coming. In 2020 the district's blocks held 2,000 residents in 1,860 homes, against 1,339 in 1,054 in 2010. Renters held 1,259 of the 1,389 occupied homes, and 471 stood empty on census day, 270 of them for rent. The appraisal roll dates eight apartment buildings inside the line to 2014 or later, with 2,241 units, from 424 at 2627 Live Oak Street to the 26-story tower of 310 at 2525 Elm Street and 192 at 2800 Taylor Street in 2025; 602 of those units were finished after the count. The two records do not reconcile: the six buildings the roll dates from 2007 to 2019 hold more units than the census found homes, and this guide cannot say which count is short. The Census Bureau's survey puts median gross rent at $1,895 in tract 204.01, which holds 1,719 of the 2,000 residents, against $1,472 for the city, and Zillow's observed rent for ZIP code 75226 was $1,572 in August 2026, down 2.4% on the year.

Owners are few, and the levy sits on top. Only 130 homes were owner-occupied in 2020, and no price index follows the line. Zillow put the typical home in ZIP code 75226, which covers about 85% of the district, at $308,747 in August 2026, up 0.5% on the year, and the MLS median for a condominium anywhere in the city was $310,000 on 121 sales, up 30.8%. On the 2025 rates a homestead at that median owes the five taxing units about $4,439 a year, a landlord about $6,903, and the district adds 12 cents per $100, about $372, of which it budgets 59% for safety, services and improvements in 2026. The citywide arithmetic is on the Dallas page.

The flood layer is the storm sewer's. The City maps about three-quarters of the district as a 1% stormwater hazard area over the Mill Creek and Peaks Branch drainage, on blocks that held 1,759 of the 2,000 residents. Its tunnel from Uptown to White Rock Creek, first due in 2024, is now expected by early 2029, and the City says flooding upstream of it waits on later bond work. Baylor University Medical Center, a Level I trauma center, is just north across the Green Line, and Deep Ellum station has served the line since 2009.

Worth knowing before you commit

Read the permits and the flood layer

Bars run on permits with end dates, and the City maps three-quarters of the district as a stormwater hazard

---

• Ask the seller for the Deep Ellum district's notice of obligation, which names the 12-cent rate, and budget it beside the five tax rates
• Look the address up on the City's floodplain map and on FEMA's, and price a flood policy even where a lender does not ask for one
• Read the specific use permits on the block: a bar's hours and the year its permit ends are in the Council's conditions
• Apply to the appraisal district for the homestead exemption; the seller's capped value ends with the sale

How Deep Ellum got here

• 1873The Texas and Pacific Railway reaches Dallas and meets the Houston and Texas Central east of town, beside the settlement of freed people on Elm Street that the Handbook of Texas calls a freedmen's town. The Deep Ellum Foundation dates the neighborhood to this year.
• 1884Robert S. Munger builds his first cotton gin factory in Deep Ellum, by the Handbook of Texas's account; the 2023 National Register nomination dates the Continental Gin complex at Elm Street and Trunk Avenue to 1888, expanded through 1914. In 1899 Munger's company merges with smaller ones to form the Continental Gin Company.
• 1911German immigrants' benevolent society, the Sons of Hermann, builds its two-story wood-frame hall at 3414 Elm Street.
• 1913Ford opens its Southwest assembly plant in Deep Ellum, in the building at 2700 Canton Street the nomination dates to 1914, and Dallas's first bonded warehouse goes up at 3200 Main Street, later the Interstate Forwarding Company's.
• 1916The Knights of Pythias Temple opens at 2551 Elm Street, designed by the African American architect William Sidney Pittman.
• 1920Twelve nightclubs, cafes and domino parlors are open in Deep Ellum, by the Handbook of Texas's count; there are twenty by 1950. Much of the entertainment district sits near Elm Street and Central Track, the rail line later replaced by Central Expressway.
• 1926Blind Lemon Jefferson's recordings sell nationally, and Columbia Records comes to Dallas to record more of the district's performers.
• 1956The streetcar that ran along Main and Commerce Streets into Deep Ellum stops running.
• 1969Construction of Central Expressway through the area begins, taking out the 2400 block of Elm Street; Interstate 345, the elevated freeway between downtown and Deep Ellum, opens on 23 August 1973.
• 1983The Deep Ellum Plan for the Near East Side is unveiled in January, and the Continental Gin Company complex is listed on the National Register on 14 February.
• 1987On 29 April the Council passes Ordinance 19532, creating PD 269, the Deep Ellum/Near East Side District, over about 274 acres. The Continental Gin Historic District and the Sons of Hermann Home become City landmarks in January and February.
• 1991The Handbook of Texas counts more than fifty bars and nightclubs in Deep Ellum, and Wikipedia 57.
• 1992The Interstate Forwarding Company Warehouse at 3200 Main Street, a City landmark since 22 August 1990, is listed on the National Register on 14 February.
• 1999The City establishes the Deep Ellum Public Improvement District. It is renewed in 2006, 2013, 2018 and 2025.
• 2007Under PD 269, the right to run a bar, private club, tattoo studio or dance hall that the zoning no longer allowed without a permit ends on 14 December.
• 2009Deep Ellum station opens on 14 September at 450 North Good-Latimer Expressway, one of the Green Line's first stops.
• 2014The appraisal roll dates a five-story building of 424 apartments at 2627 Live Oak Street to 2014, the first of eight built since.
• 2016A 17-story tower of 337 apartments at 3131 Main Street is finished.
• 2017A 10-story office building at 2550 Pacific Avenue is finished, and the Grand Lodge of the Colored Knights of Pythias is listed on the National Register on 17 February.
• 2019A 26-story tower of 310 apartments at 2525 Elm Street and 232 apartments at 2900 Canton Street are finished, after 336 at 400 South Hall Street in 2018, and the roll dates a 165-room hotel at the Knights of Pythias Temple to 2019.
• 2020The census counts 2,000 residents and 1,860 homes on the district's blocks, against 1,339 and 1,054 in 2010. A 17-story office building at 2500 Pacific Avenue and a 7-story one at 2700 Commerce Street are finished.
• 2023In May the Council backs TxDOT's plan to rebuild Interstate 345 below street level. On 30 June about 113 acres are listed on the National Register as the Deep Ellum Historic District, 281 resources of which 226 contribute.
• 2024220 apartments at 4011 Commerce Street are finished, after 190 at 3900 Commerce Street in 2021.
• 2025The City renews the improvement district to 31 December 2035. In March Dallas police begin closing streets on Friday and Saturday nights, and on 31 July they move the closures to 10 p.m. for the foreseeable future. A 192-unit building at 2800 Taylor Street is finished.
• 2026The Deep Ellum Community Arts Fair runs from 3 to 5 April, and the Council hears a bar's permit request on Elm Street on 8 April that the City Plan Commission recommended for one year only.

What the map does not show: the parks and the streets around them sit inside the same stormwater hazard area as most of the district. The photographs above are of the Hall of State at Fair Park, White Rock Lake and Klyde Warren Park, elsewhere in the city.

Elsewhere in Dallas, not Deep Ellum

The free option is the Santa Fe Trail, from Hill Street near the district's eastern edge to White Rock Lake.