Big Ballers & Deck Parks: Klyde Warren’s $8.5 Billion Rocktober Takeover | Calvert Collins-Bratton

Nobody would have thought that I would be the one. Rhyner, sports talk. Baseball.

Baseball. Baseball. Baseball.

Oh, with the big mic. Oh, okay. Alright.

Yeah. Okay. Now I get it.

We got a lightning strike, boys. What happened over there, Grego? We had a little lightning strike right outside the window.

The Texas Rangers win the world series. Alright. Alright.

Here's a tip for all these Americano League teams. Don't... Wait.

You said tip. Yeah. T.

Okay. The p. I would Keep jamming.

The ticket the ticket colon. Nothing but a big Gen X jerk off the set. Is this a cool night or what?

I know somebody would hear that and go, bullshit. I'm back, bitches. Mike.

What? I said, go, Mike. We're live.

Just five? Yeah. Just go.

Just go? For you today. Okay?

I don't even get a countdown. 5432. No.

No. No. Not not not yet.

Not yet. Not yet. Well, we're live.

So Okay. You say we're live, then we're live. Guess we'll believe her.

I guess so. You should. I wanna wanna go pop up out of here.

Sitting up straight. Hurry fixed it for you too. Well, usually, we get a better heads up from you than this.

It's Monday, man. I'm not I'm not And we're in here every Monday. This...

It's Monday stuff. I I spent I don't work around here. Long time at the bank today, Mike, and I just...

I'm not Wait. That's me. Correctly.

I'm at the bank all day. I was... I went to go see you.

You weren't there. Aw. Well, okay.

On that cheerful note, hi. It's another episode of Your Dark Companion, the only podcast that would even think about coming on to the podcast airwaves or whatever they are this way. But it's what we do around here.

That's why we're us. Anyway, glad you're out there. It is the twenty sixth of Rocktober as the optional month of Rocktober starts to wind down.

What does that mean? That means we head into the mandatory winter gear month of November. No more shorts.

No more shorts. For some, I'm still gonna wear shorts. Okay.

Well, you're not a member of the confederation. I seem not to be. Those of us who are, we have to comply.

I understand. This is episode number 269 And of today, I don't know if you guys have been to Clyde Warren Park lately. I have.

I love Clyde Warren Park. I gotta tell you, I didn't think I would. I thought the concept of it was foreign to me because we didn't have anything like that around here.

I thought the execution of it would be slipshod, and I just didn't think it would work out very well at all around here. And it has. I was wrong about every bit of that because now I love it.

Love going down there for anything just about. And today, we've had one CEO of Clyde Warren Park in here before. That being the great Kit Saar's, but she's not there anymore.

And today, we have the woman who took her place, Calvert Collins Breton. Yay. Here with us.

The new CEO of Clyde Warren Park. Hi, Mike. I'm Rock Hi, Kelbert.

I'm Rocktober ing right here. You are Rocktober. I mean, it feels like fall.

That in of itself deserves a celebration. Heck yeah. It does.

After a summer like this, like we just had, it does deserve a celebration. We love this weather. Well, how are you?

I'm great. Are you good? I think I'm the...

I was trying to... While you were introducing me, I think I'm the fifth CEO of a park that's only been around fourteen years. So either we change a lot or people can't keep a job.

So Kit is a good friend and I had spent a lot of time working on parks as a volunteer and now they pay me for it. I'm so glad that you love the park, the park loves you back. And it is the...

One of the best things about the park is my other favorite four letter word besides live, and that is free. Because almost everything at the park is free three hundred sixty five days a year. Yes.

It's a great hang. It is a great hang. For any occasion or for no occasion.

Absolutely. If you're... If you got cabin fever and you're looking somewhere to go, go to Clyde Warren Park.

I work nearby and get lunch at one of the food trucks about every few days. Wonderful. Well, we have 18 spots for food trucks and most of them are full.

And we, you know, a lot of people don't realize this in 2012, the park is now 14 years old, we kind of created food trucks in Dallas. They were not a thing and in fact, Ruthie's Roland Cafe that makes amazing grilled cheeses and brisket sandwiches was kind of one of the first food trucks. And the woman who started it, her father owns a building nearby and he's like, you want to do what?

She said, well, want to sell grilled cheeses out of a truck. And he said, yeah, good luck with that. No one's going to come eat food out of a truck.

And many of them are actually converted Amazon, UPS or FedEx trucks that have gone by the wayside and they've been retrofitted and all of a sudden you can build a whole food truck empire out of a recycled seat. There is good recycle reuse out there. It was a pretty foreign concept around here because like you say and like you know, there weren't many places for them to go.

You know? Right. There weren't that many places for them to to go out there, dock, and do their thing.

That's right. And Clyde Warren Park was the perfect thing and the perfect place at the perfect time for all of that. It's one of the...

One of those magical confluences. It really... Honestly, Mike, it was a year of that.

The 2012 was a pretty amazing year for the city of Dallas, and I was... It was part of the reason we moved back to Dallas. So I grew up here, I'm a seventh generation, I'm an OG Texan, and I swore I'd never come back.

I grew up in East Dallas, on Swiss, then my parents... Did you go to high school? My parents divorced and I went to Highland Park, So I was ready for new blood.

Mhmm. Needed, you know, bigger fish, bigger pond. And so I swore I'd never come back to Dallas.

And it... I spent ten years in television and it was actually Fox four that brought us my husband, I picked up my husband along the way in Vegas, that's a different story. He said...

We went here a really good one. Yeah. It is not as exciting as you might think by that introduction, but...

Try us. But anyway, but we came, we were newly married and we came back for Christmas, the holidays of 2011 and the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, the Perot Museum and Clyde Warren Park were all under construction. And I thought if my hometown could invest that kind of, ideas and creativity in the urban core, then this is someplace that I want to come back and be.

So it all worked out. And sure enough, a few months later, Fox Four called and moved us back to Dallas. It was really part of my homecoming.

And so I'm very grateful that the kind of founders and city leadership thought to invest in such incredible public infrastructure as the park, the Parrot and the Calatrava Bridge. Pretty extraordinary. Really?

For sure. Yes. Especially when you know the history of Dallas with things like that.

This is not a... Here in our Fairburg, those kind of things never, for whatever reason, and there there are actually a lot of reasons, but they just never were able to gain any kind of traction. Mhmm.

But that's why public private partnerships work. And I think there are the arboretum, the zoo, you know, the the arenas, the... But Clyde Warren is a great example of a public private partnership, but it would not have worked without both sectors because it took private leadership and private money combined with city bond dollars and regional transportation dollars.

And I give interviews all the time to other cities and entities looking to replicate Clyde Warren and we are a unicorn. We say that our founder, Jody Grant, Jody and Sheila often will say that same thing because of our location. And we've been big advocates for Halpern Park as well.

But you know, Halpern Park's entire East Side is the zoo. Well, don't pay taxes. And so you know, they're limited only to the West Side and they've already not even been open six months.

And of course, Michael's dad is the was the reason that it's, been so successful and his dad and I worked on federal earmarks together for Halpern Park and a lot of support for that park because we saw the success of Clyde Warren and it's already starting to grow, know, some of the economic development on the West Side, but of course it's bound by the East because of the zoo. So, but we give, I give interviews as is Jody and a lot of our team, you have to have the private sector come with the idea, with the leverage, and with the know how because if you rely on the public sector to do it, it'll never get done. Yeah.

You know, as a native, I remember that area before Clyde Warren Park came along, which makes it all the more amazing Mhmm. To me because, you know, you had to... First of all, you had to, I guess, dig the ditch Mhmm.

For the freeway. That was job one. Right.

But then after that was done, and they started talking about... They're gonna have this deck park thing. They're gonna put a a park on top of of Woodall Rogers Freeway.

Build a park out of thin air. Yeah. And I'm thinking, okay.

Alright. What's that gonna look like? That sounds like some cockeyed idea out of San Francisco.

That's not what we do. In Dallas, we're brass tacks here, people. We're capitalists, not communists.

Yeah. It it it seemed completely farfetched. I had no I...

No idea what the concept of it must look like or what it was gonna look like in the end game until it started to go up. And the more it went up, the more I would drive by there and think, okay. I kinda...

I don't quite understand it yet, but I think I see where they're going. Uh-huh. You know?

Uh-huh. Now, I mean, to make that long story a little shorter, it seems like it's been there forever, and it seems like it's always been that way forever. You know?

It's just become a part of the fabric of the city. It was intended to knit the city together. I mean, it really...

In the in the early days when it was concepted... So one thing that was really important that I think a lot of your listeners and viewers might not know this history is in 2001, it was between Dallas and Chicago for Boeing's headquarters. We were bidding against each other to be the headquarters of Boeing moving out of the Pacific Northwest.

They wanted to be more central. And Boeing chose Chicago for two reasons that they cited. They said urban green space and public schools.

And that was a real wake up call to city leadership, to the business community of like, but we're Dallas, we're more tax friendly, we're more business and regulation friendly. Why would they pick Chicago? Their weather's terrible.

They're Yankees, you know? Anyway, but that... But Laura Miller, who was mayor at the time, created a task force called the Inside the Loop Committee chaired by Robert Deckard, who was chair of the Belo Corporation to really analyze what could Dallas do better.

And there was always a concept you referenced when the thought to Canyon to to put Woodall Rogers as a tunnel or Canyon instead of an elevated freeway. That was the citizens council in the early city... In the city council in the nineteen sixties when Jay Eric Johnson was mayor, and that decision was made to make it a canyon instead of an elevated freeway, which Clyde Warren might not exist today if that had happened.

And Jay Eric Johnson does cite... There is a quote that he said he envisioned a deck over that highway at some point. Anyway, fast forward forty years.

And so then this Inside the Loop Committee is convened. They do all these fancy meetings, have all these fancy people on the board, and a deck park was mentioned in that, decision. And then also some urban parks turning surface parking lots into green space.

And then now, twenty five years later, that has all happened. And thanks to Robert Deckard and the Downtown Dallas Parks Conservancy, now there 23 acres of urban park space in Downtown Dallas. That's more than any city in America has done over the last twenty years.

But Clyde Warren was part of that Genesis of re greening the urban core. And so, but it was a real estate idea and it was the park, County Clyde Warren was created by John Zogg and Linda Owen, who ran the real estate council to say, hey, we could connect where the Crescent was, there was really not much besides surface parking lots, up to Woodall Rogers Freeway that was kind of vacant land and kind of an eyesore in the Advantual building. And a few other mid rise and high rises, but nothing that connected downtown and uptown.

And so that was the idea of if we used a park to knit those two neighborhoods together, then what could happen? And when Clydeworn Park opened in October 2012, the assessed value in the kind of zone right around the park was $2,500,000,000 that's $8,500,000,000 today. You name a project that's had more economic impact in the urban core and there isn't one.

Can't. Exactly, we wouldn't try. Wouldn't even try.

There were, Jody Grant, our founder and our board chair says there have been 29 high rises built since we opened. So that's pretty, pretty. Because what people don't realize, that means more dollars to Parkland and DISD, all those tax paying properties that have high rise condos and apartments and offices pay into our county tax system, and that's really meaningful.

I don't know what I wanna talk to you about more. This or your your time on TV. I I...

I'm an open book, Mike. Whatever you wanna know. So how long were you at Fox for?

Three years. And you were... You did what there?

Were you a a general assignments I was. Or... Yeah.

Exactly. You you... They sent me anywhere and everywhere.

My favorite, this is how... God love the assignment editors, but they're not always the most geographically savvy folks. Mhmm.

The the tenured ones are. But I remember one time I was in Arlington covering a near near drowning or... No.

I was at Cowboys Stadium or AT And T Stadium. I was doing a live shot out there at 09:00 and then my assignment editor calls me and she says, hey, on your way back to the station, which is in Downtown Dallas, can you swing by Mesquite? There's a near drowning.

I said, have you looked at a map? I said, there's no swinging by from Arlington to Mesquite to that. Swing by Mesquite from all...

Swing by, like, Cochrane, you know, Cochrane Hills or like like Westmoreland. Yeah. You don't swing by like Grand Prairie, that's on the way back.

If you're going to Mesquite, you go to Mesquite. Yeah. That's right.

Swing by. It's a destination. So, yeah, I've been like...

And then and then another one of my favorites was like, I was in... I would think I was at... I was in West Dallas somewhere and it's 10:00 after the...

I did the evening news with Steve, Heather and Clarice. And so they're like, you know, we think we're just gonna go ahead and send you out to, cover the tornado in mineral wells. Oh, Lord.

People. Again, we have a crew out of the Fort Worth bureau. Can you just ship them out?

And the last thing I'll... Another... One of my favorite Fox fourisms is I had covered, you might remember, the home rule fight over...

There was a charter, an attempt at trying to have DISD have more oversight and control over its money instead of what was sent to TEA in Austin, it's called the Home Rule Initiative. It was well intentioned, but never going to go very far. But I covered that from start to finish.

And finally, the night of the vote at the city council, or sorry, at the school board, I got laryngitis, like that day. And I wasn't feeling well and I had to do the four, five and six and then do the nine and the 10 for the vote. But I lost my voice by the 05:30 newscast and my executive producer sends me home and I said, I had been on this story for a year and a half and you're gonna send in a Fort Worth reporter that didn't done no blank from Shinola and to do to...

I wrote the whole story and then watched somebody else deliver it. And I said, man, that was the best story I never did. And he didn't know anything about this story.

And I I I... He delivered it well, just like... Well, that's good.

Just read the script. That's good. Yeah.

I mean, not... You know, some people just have to be pretty faces. I wrote the So whole was getting into TV what you wanted to do when you got out of college and stuff?

Oh, when I was in high school. I knew at Highland Park had a TV program and I knew I wanted to to study broadcast journalism. I went to the University of Missouri and, tooled around mid mid market one thirty eight, Mid Missouri and covered the...

Is that Cape Girardeau? No. Cape is Southeast Missouri.

Jefferson City. Jeff City. Right?

Ah, okay. Center Columbia and Jeff City is one market. Out of two eleven TV markets, we were one thirty nine.

So we were cutting our teeth, you know, people in town would tell us that they had drinking games to watching our newscast because they were so bad. And, anyway, we... It was a great place to cut your teeth.

People have drinking games for this podcast. I mean... Because we're so bad.

Boy, they get... They're gonna get drunk quick. They always do.

We invite it. Yeah. Wordsmith words is he gonna drop today?

A lot. Some s a t words. Like, is that a real word?

Is that a solaceism? I haven't dropped one yet, have I? You said Farberg or something earlier.

Oh, Farberg. Yeah. That's two words.

That's yeah. This Farberg, ye fair lady. Yes.

He speaks he speaks the royal we. The what? Yeah.

How thou art. It's like star Why for affair up in did you get out of the game? Mean, this is what you wanted to do.

It is and I had... Driving all the time. Clearly getting sent to BFE.

I'm like, I grew up here and I didn't know where that BFE County was. But I got out, I loved, I did love it and I loved... I was in Omaha, then Vegas and then here and I loved the variety.

I mean, was, I joked that it was the only, the only science I did every day was that there was a constant and a variable. The constant was the pro, how you put it together and the variable was obviously the content. And I just kinda got...

I got tired of covering the three d's, death, destruction, and DISD. Unfortunately, fortunately, they were... I hope they were mutually exclusive, sometimes one and the same.

But I kind of, just the bleeds at Leeds kinda beat the passion out of me. You know, in Vegas, my first week in television, I was at the best station in in Vegas, KLAS, like WFA, a legacy family owned station, And it was a great shop. And my first week, it was November 2007.

My first week, you you do HR on the first day. Tuesday was the implosion of the Frontier Hotel, which was covered live on every newscast, which I'm like, that's a thing. Yeah.

And I mean, that was like every year there was a implosion. And then my third... My fourth day was OJ Simpson's preliminary hearing, for his kidnapping trial.

And he was like from, I mean, he was 10 feet away from me in the And then my fifth day, Vegas is, a big furniture market. Like you hear about High Point, North Carolina, that's where you go to buy furniture, the big furniture makers go to buy their product. And Vegas is a huge furniture market.

A lot of people don't know that, random. Fun fact of the day. Did not know that.

Didn't I see? Learned something every day. Check, I'm done here.

And then, so I covered that. They were getting ready for the big market and then, I mean, we pulled cable, I swear, for miles. And then I got home, I did the morning show in Vegas.

So I was out, you know, reporting at 5AM. And then I got home and I didn't know what time zone I was in. I was...

Didn't, you know, gotten up at 1AM or whatever. And my cell phone, my flip phone rings and I answer it, know, hi, KLAS eyewitness news. This is Calvert.

And the woman on the other end the line, this chirpy voice, this is like 12:30 in the afternoon. And she's like, hi, I'm Annie and I'm with Hookers for Jesus and I just wanted and I wanted to let you know about our our rally tomorrow outside the Mirage. It's at 10AM.

We'll be in pink t shirt. I mean, I can remember this like it was ten minutes ago. And I'm I'm like, uh-huh.

Okay. You're gonna need to start over so I can take notes. You're who, with what, and where are you going?

I think... And she... Yeah.

Probably. And she she details... She's like, oh, I'm Annie Lobert.

I'm the founder of Hookers for Jesus. We have a website, hookersforjesus.net, and we're a five zero one c three, and we try to recruit people out of the sex industry and show them the path path of God to a better life. And I'm...

You know, I go into reporter mode. I'm like, okay, so now how did you get started? And then like, is a part of your membership?

She's like, oh, well, we're not exclusive, but we recruit hookers, johns, drug dealers, drug buyers. I was like, well, it's very very inclusive of you. You're like you're like ecumenical for...

She's like, oh, no. We're we're strippers, like, we're all over... Stop shop.

Exactly. And she said, well, we have rallies outside of the casinos so that the workers see us and they realize they can come down and talk to us and we can show them the path to a better life. So of course I do my due diligence and I take down all the information, I call the assignment desk and I said, well, there's gonna be a rally tomorrow outside the Mirage.

And anyway, they're like, oh, yeah, we know who they are. And so so I hang up and I'm like, immediately call my parents. And I'm like, you're not gonna believe who I just got a call from.

And so I, you know, call my my mother and then my father. And then my father, by the way, told this story at my engagement party in Dallas. And like, you're not gonna believe it is that like you just could not have had a more Vegas first week, implosion of a casino, OJ's prelim, and then hookers for Jesus.

Like... Where do you even go from there? I know.

Down. Downhill. I covered some weird things that you're like, that does only happen in Vegas.

And my husband is born and raised. He is a native Las Vegas, of which you will meet very few. And his parents met at the nuclear test site.

They had to take the buses with blacked out windows to work. His dad was an engineer and his mom was a secretary. And we joke that's why he's so tall, but he does not glow anymore.

That's good. Yeah. That's progress.

He is very fair skinned. So, I mean, it's kind of one in the same. So what was your path to getting to CEO of Clyde Warren Park?

I mean, that's totally linear, right, Mike? I should say so. Yes, that's why when I give speeches to students, I'm like, just give yourself some grace.

You might take some leaps of faith in your career. So I was very singularly focused on journalism. I mean, I met Michael when he was in college, like, and I was a mentor to young Michael at SMU, like, trying to get his foot in the door in sports journalism.

I did You know him, I've known each other a little while. It's been a minute. He didn't have a beard back then.

Couldn't grow one at the time. And I actually in Vegas, I did news. I anchored...

I was a reporter. I anchored news, weather, traffic, and even sports. I jokingly went into my boss's office one day and was like, bro, you may watch out for your job because I'm gonna I may take it.

You've now overemployed me making 40 k a year, I might come for your job. But I, so Fox four brought us back to Dallas and then, and I loved Fox four. It wasn't, I really enjoyed the people and the work, but I had our oldest daughter and I wanted to move schedules.

Cause I did the nine and ten and again, going to BFE County and every night or many nights and I, had her and then I wanted to move to mornings or days and it just didn't work out. And and I started getting recruited. I got recruited by a police department, a law firm and Methodist Hospital.

And I thought, okay, maybe this is a sign that I should do something else. And so I got a very official Facebook message from my would be boss at Methodist saying, we'd love to talk to you about being the PR manager for Methodist. And I loved healthcare and I loved medical stories.

And so I thought, well, it's a management experience, more money, holidays off, sign me up. And so I took the leap of faith and I went to Methodist and then I got promoted after two and a half years PR and I got promoted into the foundation and started telling stories to donors and to the public about how we were saving people's lives. And especially we're the largest employer South Of I-thirty, which I thought was important.

And then I got recruited five years after that to Communities Foundation of Texas. So CFT is kind of like a charitable bank and they run North Texas Giving Day, their largest community foundation in the state. So at CFT, they would grow people's passion so that they could give it away.

Then two and years after that, Kit calls me out of the blue and says, and I had served on the city's park and recreation board for eight years, so I knew a thing or two about how parks operated. And so then Kit calls and says, Hey, I got recruited to take this great job at SMU. I'd like for you to be my successor.

And I'm like, What? But I already like my job. I have a job, I'm gainfully employed and I get holidays and weekends off.

And she's like, Well, not for long. So she put my name forward in the search and a bunch of other people applied and they picked me. Nice.

So I've on gainfully employed at the park for two months. I just got health insurance. Whoo.

Hell yeah. So I still don't have a four zero one k match. Hope it...

December. Now you could have said no to this. I could have.

What what brought you around on it? So I I've... As we talked about earlier, just the economic engine that this park has become, and it's also...

And we're at a critical junction of the park because last week we started construction on phase two, the expansion of the park, which was always envisioned. The park was always intended to be a seven acre park, but, you know, money and constraints prevented us from the... In phase one from being able to expand to the full seven acres.

And so I thought this was an amazing moment in the park's history to take the helm and the deck. So the infrastructure of the park is fully funded. So, and it began, construction began last week.

I mean, I looked out of my office today and there's a bulldozer like pulling up concrete, it is happening. And they cleared the trees on the service roads last week. And so it will take a little over two years, it's TxDOT's project.

We put money in, the state put money in and or the region and then the city in two different bond programs. So we've got $111,000,000 sitting in an account at the city. And so that will fund the deck, the infrastructure itself, then we'll raise the probably 80 plus million for the building and then an additional green space that will house all kinds of festivals, a winter ice rink.

So the deck itself will be a little over two years, then TxDOT hands us the keys, then we build those amenities on top. So I think all in, we're looking at end of two thousand and thirty, two thousand thirty one that will be fully complete as a park. So it was a great time, an exciting moment.

And I think Kit had a great opportunity and then it was just the right time for me to lead the organization. I've been very devoted to this park as a donor, as a user and what it's meant to the city of Dallas. All right, I want to talk to you a little bit about what kind of challenges None run whatsoever.

None. Can believe. I find that very difficult to believe.

But I wanna talk to you about that in just a minute. This is Calvert Collins Braden. She is the CEO of Clyde Warren Park.

And we'll have a little bit more with her in just a second. You can sit there and relax and just let it go for a couple. That's right.

There you go. It's like a TV commercial break. Yeah.

Yeah. Think of it that way. Yeah.

Because right now, it is time for the dreaded and feared mid show read. Alright. Let's talk about ball watching here.

Oh, I thought that was gonna go somewhere else. I totally thought you said ball washing. I did too.

I said watch. Not washing. Watching.

Do the other thing at home. Actually, you should do both at home. You can do them.

Fair enough. Yeah. You do anything you want at home.

But don't sit at home every Saturday and Sunday and watch watch ball alone or worse, invite friends over to grill. No. No.

Don't do that, man. Don't do that. Call your friends.

Call your family. Call your peeps, and get to Dudley's where they are going to make way better food units than you can. Plus, they have a bar.

No way. Bars have drinks. Bars have drinks.

That's right. Really well. And balls, as Calvert says.

Dudley's is your football watching headquarters. Either location, 2927 North Henderson Avenue, just Southeast of Central Expressway here in the D, or 2975 Highway 66 in Rockwall. And every Tuesday.

Oh, I got got another one? Yeah. Okay.

Well, I'm... Alright. Let me get out of Dudley's.

Look. Whoever wrote these don't know... Doesn't know how to ride spots.

Oh goodness. I'm weak. Oh.

So, yes, go to Dudley's and watch football there. It's a cool, comfortable place. Shupi and I both go there a lot.

We dig it. We bet you will too. It is Dudley...

Dudley's. Now every Tuesday, 05:30 to seven, join the Sunset Lounge at Scout, and the Stadler be one of the first five people to give the bartender the password, and the password is football. Football.

Football. Go up to him and tell him that you will get a free drink or free valet service. Oh.

Your call. Stick around after for Ziggy with beer thirty sports o'clock. Valet is half high...

Half price valet is available for everyone every Tuesday at 05:30 at Scout. Let the adventure begin. It is Scout at the Stadler in Hard Downtown Dallas, where you will find us there with three wide everywhere.

Yeah. Connected to Uptown now because of Clyde Park. There you go.

That's right. We are. And the boss lady at Clyde Warren Park is with us.

Calvert Collins Bratton is her name. Is this all all you hoped it would be? And more.

Did did that tell... Does the teleprompter trigger any memories, flashbacks? I start to start to get No.

Cold I can still read a teleprompter like the best of them. I actually had a funny moment because I had... When I when I worked at Communities Foundation, I did a lot of interviews for North Texas Giving Day.

And one time I was out at an Amazon, because Amazon's a presenting sponsor, and I was out at their distribution center and the reporter got called back to the station and the producer was like, I'm so sorry, but you're gonna have to talk to the camera, to the anchors. And I'm like, we're good here. And so there are all these nonprofits behind me and they all had their signs.

And I was like, you know, great, Mark and Kara, so good to see you. Look at this crowd we've got this morning. I mean, look at all these different, folks that got up with us.

Look at, you know, Jim Bob's Feral Rescue and, United Way and the Carter Blood Care and all these little, you know, the Raptor Center, all these places. I said, you know, this Yeah. Is all very Birds.

Clearly, we've heard on that. Yeah. I made that mistake.

Anyway, so I just did this walk and talk and the anchors were just dumbfounded, where'd we find this? She's like with them? And he was like, I've I've done this a time or two.

Yeah. But they they did give me Yeah. Psyched it for a I got it.

Yes. But I... But it just...

It's just like riding a bike. It just comes right back. So I see the teleprompter and I'm like...

I start to see like, ugh, maybe I should control it but No. It's good. Next time.

Yeah. I just don't have that thing for the teleprompter. That's okay.

But I but I I I don't try and fake it either. I loved the career and I loved still getting to do media for the park and other things, but I'm glad I'm no longer in the business. What's the biggest challenge about running the park?

Every day is different. I mean, challenges arise from neighbors who complain about noise and other things to operation like plants dying that you didn't expect. Now we've got construction headaches and I wanna make sure we're overly transparent and communicative with the neighbors because there are, you know, they live, work and play there.

I manage a staff of 20, you know, I got a food truck people complaining, why do we, they don't wanna pay us as much, we have a revenue share agreement, although we haven't raised our rates ever. We're like, you can raise your rates if you want to, But it's just dynamics. I mean, you're in the heart of the city, you just have things that arise and you need to jump on them and you're a destination.

I mean, like the other night at trick or treating in the park, I'm talking to the screen operator about how we we were showing Toy Story five. Like, if we position the screen this way, we angle the... Can we connect to the speakers by the fountain?

Like one of our water cannons in the fountain isn't working right now. I'm like Oh, no. We got an air compressor issue.

Like, right, get this calling the guys out there, get them back in here. You know, just it's dynamic, but it's also really interesting. So challenges of, you know, dealing with sponsors and donors and neighbors, you've got a lot of constituents to keep happy.

I guess in TV, every day is a different day. Exactly. And you...

I know. You you reach a point in things where you kind of thrive on that, don't you? Yeah.

I think in having... Making decisions quickly. I've always been a pretty decisive person, but I've got a staff of 20 who are like, Hey, what do you think about this?

I'm like, Nope, stop doing that. That's not a highest and best use. Let's move along.

Like where is, what brings us joy? What brings us dollars? What brings us people into the park?

We want to continue to be the town square of Dallas that we're always welcoming and inclusive. I mean, it really is the melting pot of our city, you know, being there for trick or treating. Like you saw people of every demographic, every walk of life, they may celebrate holidays you and I don't know about, but I love that.

Always want parks are universal equalizers. Parks are like children in that way. Parks are universal equalizers and we always want, we strive for the park to be safe, clean and welcoming twenty four seven.

And it usually is too. Mhmm. Every time I go down there Yeah.

It's it's squared away, you know. I've I've Mhmm. I don't feel like I gotta, you know, like be on my toes or look out at people out of the corner of my eye for what that guy over there might do or anything.

You don't have that down there. Except Gruber's. Oh, That's fair.

But I'm used to him. You saw the beard coming a 100 yards away. It glows in the dark.

But I think, you know, we're lucky because we don't take any money from the city and we're fully self sufficient as a park entity, which is unique. You know, we have over 400 parks in the city of Dallas, but most are reliant on the city budget. And so therefore, great years, it's great, in bad years, it's lean.

And so, you know, some parks aren't going to get mowed as often. Because we are run by a foundation and we have a pretty diversified revenue stream, like I mentioned, the food trucks and MeeCocino, we have revenue share agreement with them. We also have membership societies, friends groups and things like that, that pay to support the park on an annual basis.

But they're not required to do that to enjoy the park like you. But we also and we have corporate partners and sponsors and donors, and then the property owners basically from The Crescent all the way south to Ross Avenue, west to kind of Field Street and East to the Arts District, we share a public improvement district with the Arts District. And so that allows both of our entities to stay, have security, we stay, have cleaning services so that we do stay safe, clean and welcoming 20 fourseven.

Are there a lot of other entities like the aforementioned me Cosina who would like to jump on that train down there, Clyde Warren? So there in our new building, as part of the expansion, the 1st Floor will have at least one or two restaurants. We're working on that now to have make sure we have a different concept.

We want MeCo to continue thriving as it does. Mhmm. We want to be able to offer...

Does too. It does. It's it's a very successful location.

And we we give them a lot of business. We want them to keep doing well, you know, they're locally owned, and but we want to have a different concept and they'll be one of our bidders as part of that. We want to offer a different cuisine, maybe a coffee shop in addition to a that offers breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The 2nd Floor of our building will be event space. So a corporate meeting, when we have rain, you know, we have one hundred and fifty days a year where we have inclement weather. So that means our Zumba class and our salsa class either get canceled, or if they had an indoor space they could move to, we could still honor that event.

And so we also want to be able to offer weddings. Like right now, people get asked all the time if we would do weddings in the park, but we don't have what bride wants to sign up with a 50% chance of rain? Okay, you're the one.

But most I'm the one in it poured on already. That's good luck. But I mean, the problem is most brides don't want to risk being an outdoor venue and so, so that will give us event space.

And then the Top Floor, which is a rooftop deck, will be semi covered and so that could be a wet... An... A wedding space and then...

Or ceremony reception under... Underneath. But then the last...

Where's this going up at in the park? So you know where Hunt... Hunt Oil's headquarters are?

Between Saint Paul and Akert. Yeah. Okay.

So it's a... That's kind of a a square quadrant. So that's where the building will be.

And then Acord to the west towards the Calatrava Bridge, the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, there will be an additional acre of green space and that's where the ice rink will go. And like flower shows, we've had a request for a dog show, you know, those dog show people. And that will be all artificial turf.

The rest of the park is real grass. But we want to have a real lawn that can take the beating. You know, we have to replace the lawn every year.

Oh, well bet. And on the Ginsburg main lawn that we have to re sod every year. I mean, the fact it looks amazing now despite having 81 World Cup watch parties this summer.

It took a beating. We just receded and we have to re saw it every year, but our operations team, I mean, back to the challenges question, like, you get why we think we had a, I don't know, a tribe of bunnies that kept eating the grass in one particular section. We're like, where did the bunnies come from?

We live in the concrete jungle. Where did the bunnies come from? It's still a jungle.

It's sly little creatures. Yeah, but that's in a residential neighborhood where the bunnies come from. Yeah, she's like right there.

Oh yeah, oh. I'm a block away from you. Yes, okay.

Exactly where do those bunnies, they're little nimble creatures. Anyway, so they started killing one section of our grass. And so we had cameras on and we're like, you know, like from Despicable Me or something like, felt like Mission Impossible, like we're gonna find you bunnies, plus they replicate.

So anyway, but just funny challenges that arise. Scooters, people bike through the park, you gotta tell them to get off their bikes. Anyway, so it is a dynamic place.

A cool place. It is a very cool place and it is a free place. We wanted to always stay free.

Yeah. There are wonderful parks in the city that do have public private partnerships like the zoo, like the arboretum, but they're ticketed, you know, you gotta pay to go in. So, we we don't have that.

We will always stay a free park. Now there may occasionally be exhibits that we have to tent off or exhibit off. But by and large, we want to try.

I mean, we had 20,000 trick or treaters there two days ago and it's amazing how good the lawn looks. And we want everybody to come back for our tree lighting celebration, which is the city's annual tree lighting on December 5 from four to 6PM. We have a new tree this year and even bigger, better and brighter than before.

We've got the Nutcracker, we've got some the Wranglers from Lake Highlands High School, we've the Bishop Lynch Choir and some other performers. So it's very family friendly, face painters, balloon artists, all the things. So we want it to be that free, fun, family, safe place for them to go and enjoy said holiday.

How much candy did you have to buy for the trick or treating? Well, we're very grateful to our partners at Kroger. How many get, I want you all to guess how many, how many pieces of candy you think we handed out?

You said 20,000, two hours of candy. Oh, lord. Oh, lord.

I will say five. No. Okay.

Okay, Bob. $1. I'm gonna say 15,000 pieces.

K. Well, remember, there were 20,000 people. How many how many did you other tables of sponsor.

Yes. I will say 35,000. Grandkids and skipped a lot of crap to get out of Yes.

Okay. I will say 1,000,000 pieces Woah. Of Wait a second.

1,000,000 You pieces of all are close. A 125,000 pieces of candy. That was gonna be my guess.

Right on the money. On the money. Because how many kids did you estimate were gonna be there?

It's wound up with 20 about thousand people. That's about what we had And then we played Toy Story five, which I highly recommend, it's so cute. So we had that on the East Lawn.

So I bet we had I bet we had another two two or 3,000 who stayed for the movie. Dang. And those...

You know, the food trucks did did great. And, well, I mean, I... One one, the pizza truck ran out of dough.

It's like, bro, you didn't anticipate? You didn't like your dough? He's like he's like, okay.

I'm gonna make your pizza, but you gotta come back in thirty minutes. I'm like, Domino's is faster, buddy. Anyway...

But it was delicious pizza. Told me the dobro let you down. The dobro.

The dobro. My kids, it's not the bro. It's the bruh.

Yeah. Like, bruh. I'm like, no.

Don't call me bro. I'm a I'm a chick. Don't call me that either.

But why is that a thing? But the do bros let me know. Don't bro him.

Don't bro. Yeah. Yeah.

Why is that a thing? Why did bro become a thing? I don't know.

Little buddy or mom. Mom. You know what also works?

Mom. And also, thank you. That's what my my daughter was, like, texting me.

She only gets her phone on the weekends. She was texting me complaining about something. I said, you know what works?

Thank you. After the the pizza I ordered you and the Sephora trip we made today still works. Hey, I'm grateful for that experience and the time alone.

Oh, wait. She didn't say that. They never do.

No. They don't. Here's hoping.

12. Can't wait for the first time. My granddaughter bros me.

Just wait. I I got a ways to go yet, but It's worse. They're not gonna bro you.

They're gonna say something else, and you're gonna be like, did you just say that to me? Then like, wow. One of these.

I don't know. I got a I got a list of it. We'll talk about it outside.

Must be bad if Ashley's not willing to say it out loud. Well, it must be. My grandkids are older, and I haven't been gushed at or anything yet.

Oh, no. Daddy's not bad.... Their daddy's not not programming on this.

They're not a bowling ton. Yeah. My brother, man.

Yeah. Well, it sounds like you got it going on down there. We do.

We want everybody to keep coming and coming and enjoying. And if they feel like supporting the park, we would love that. We would welcome that.

We've got new music that plays at the Nancy Best Fountain every week, programmed at noon, seven, eight and 9PM. So, and then we just, I just picked our holiday music today. So that'll start right after Thanksgiving.

I was having this discussion. So I want to ask Mike and Michael here. Are you, do you start your holiday music?

Are you first of all, are you a holiday music person? Oh boy. This is a yes or no question.

Not... Okay. Are you a holiday person?

Is the question. I'm not a I'm not a I'm not a holiday person. Alright.

Gruber, what about you? Are you a holiday I like holiday music. Okay.

Then when do you start said holiday music? Alright. If I if if were going to...

If I were a holiday music person and if I were going to start holiday music, it would start after Thanksgiving and only after Thanksgiving. So that's what we chose. We...

So we said, yes. Our starts that Monday. Our our programs run Monday to Sunday.

So we started November 30, that was a Monday. And so yes, we were and we're doing a different, we're doing a Hanukkah program for the week of Hanukkah. Nice.

And we're trying to be, you know, very inclusive. We've got, I mean, was strategic, this is a strategery, Mike, about how do you pick the right, you get the crescendos, we got that, the fountain can jump. Do you know we are the only dancing choreographed fountain that is also a splash pad, the largest in the world?

I'm like, bury the lead. Like, is it... Are the same guy that does...

If you've ever been to found... Longwood Gardens in outside of Philadelphia, it's on the DuPont Estate. It's a...

It's magnificent, but it has... I mean, it's like Versailles. It is magnificent.

And Pierre Dupont, who founded the Dupont fortune and he was created his own fountain like a hundred years ago, the same guy who programs that magnificent fountain does ours. So we're we're... We kinda baller.

Yeah. Kind of baller at the KWP. Yeah.

NBF is KWP, big baller. Yeah. Shot collar.

So 20 inch blade on the info. There we go. Anyway.

What's she talking about? A song, but it's not a Christmas song. Not a Christmas song.

We just, you know what? Just He wandered outside my demographic. You know, I will say to your listeners, we have people that will buy a song for a loved one for a birthday or Christmas.

We just did Born to be Wild, donor bought that. And another one of our board members is buying a song for her husband to surprise him on his birthday and it can be anything. No, it gets added to our rotation.

So we're doing like a special unveiling for him and he's a surprise and so bring the family out and do kind of a, isn't that a cool, I'm like, that is... That's not your average holiday experience or birthday experience. So we know it takes us like two weeks to do it.

And it dances to the beats and colors and it's pretty cool. I like it. It is it is a true melting pot.

You know what I'm coming away from this thinking? Big baller. Big baller.

You. KWP. They got the right one for that, for this.

Thank you, Mike. That's... I'm gonna add that to my resume.

Calvert. Yeah. Big ball of Breton.

That's right. Tell my kids, like, don't call me broke. Call me big ball of mama.

She is Calvert Collins Bratton. She is the CEO of Clyde Warren Park. Thank you very much for doing this today.

My pleasure. Thank you for having me, Mike and Michael. You're welcome.

That's how long we've known each other. Yeah. She knew me as Michael.

Oh, Michael. You were... Could tell you you're far more familiar with her than I am.

A little bit. We go back. Yeah.

We know people. We have the same lawyer. Yeah.

Alright. Well, thank you, Shoopy. Thank you, Ashley.

Thank you, Becca. Thank you for tuning in today or watching or whenever you may be doing it. These last forever.

You may not be watching today. You may be watching it day after tomorrow. I don't care.

Fifty years from now. Watch it. Yeah.

Just... Yeah. Twenty years from now.

Just watch it. Okay? And do this for us.

Mhmm. Share us on your social media. Get us out there amongst your friends.

Tell your friends about little YDC, and all will be good here. Mhmm. Again, thanks to everybody.

Thanks to Calvert Collins, Braden. Really nice to meet you. You're doing good work here.

Thank you, Mike. You too. You were serious people.

I could tell. Thank thank you. She's a big baller.

Yes. She is. Alright.

For Shoopee, for Ashley, for Becca, I'm Mike. Bye. Bye.

Alright. I'm gonna go take your pants off. Your Dark Companion is a Stolen Water Media presentation.