At the center of Dallas, in the middle of grand Highland Park and buzzing downtown, sits Oak Lawn, also affectionately known as “the gayborhood.”
The neighborhood has thrived on the message of being welcoming to all.
For decades, Oak Lawn has been a haven for Dallas’ LGBTQ community. An influx of new businesses, housing developments and luxury amenities is changing the makeup of the area, but advocates are working to maintain its legacy.
In recent years, more businesses have moved to Oak Lawn, prompting residential housing to follow suit. As Oak Lawn becomes a more popular place for anyone to live, its population boom has some residents concerned that the influx of new businesses, housing developments and luxury amenities could drive up prices in the area and push out long-term residents and established businesses, including its LGBTQ community.
Oak Lawn business owners, residents, Realtors and advocates see the changes as inevitable, but that doesn’t mean the legacy of the historic LGBTQ neighborhood is going anywhere as it undergoes major adjustments.
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“It happens in a lot of gayborhoods,” said David Perre, the co-owner of Crush club. “People start moving to the neighborhood a ton. While I think that is amazing, there’s also the people who are outside of the LGBT community and they want to live in a neighborhood like that, because it’s safer, it’s fun, your neighbors are good people. But at the same time, those are the things that make this place super popular now.”
The creation of the crossroads
Oak Lawn, spreading over 2,500 acres across Dallas, wasn’t always a neighborhood containing thousands of residents and a popular party spot for clubbers. Oak Lawn was initially called Cedar Springs and was home to a community of Methodists.
The Methodist community moved into the area that later became the sanctuary for the Oak Lawn Methodist Church in 1874, according to The Dallas Morning News archives. By 1890, the congregation outgrew the church and moved to a building on Cedar Springs Road and Douglas Avenue, where it became the Oak Lawn School.
The Cedar Springs area continued to grow. By the late 1920s, Cedar Springs was annexed into the city of Dallas. It later obtained the name Oak Lawn.
Oak Lawn’s history of being a haven for the LGBTQ community dates back to the mid-1900s when LGBTQ people were outcasts — and considered criminals.
“Undercover” establishments that catered to the gay community were mostly in downtown Dallas in the 1940s. It was a time when it was illegal to take partners of the same sex. Laws, continuous raids and public ridicule gradually pushed the gay clubs toward the outskirts of downtown and into Oak Lawn, according to archives.
Gay bars started to emerge at The Crossroads — the intersection at Throckmorton Street and Cedar Springs Road. The intersection has been a meeting place for the LGBTQ community in Dallas since the late 1960s.
In 2018, Oak Lawn became the first neighborhood in Texas with an official Texas Historical Commission marker recognizing it as a historic LGBTQ area. The neighborhood continues to preserve its LGBTQ history.
From the rainbow flag crosswalk that refuses to fade, to the creation of Oak Lawn Place, an LGBTQ senior living center, and continuous work done by the Oak Lawn Committee, like the building of the Legacy of Love Monument, the LGBTQ neighborhood has been preserved.
But real estate agents and community members believe the character of Oak Lawn might be changing due to the businesses coming to and leaving the neighborhood.
Since fall, several new restaurants and businesses have made Oak Lawn their home, such as NYSE Texas and Babel. Recent departures from the neighborhood include Hamburger Mary’s. Crush club almost became another establishment in Oak Lawn to close its doors this year as well.
Making it in Oak Lawn
Seeing businesses come and go has been a part of Lee Daugherty’s life. He’s owned Alexandre’s on Cedar Springs for over 21 years, and during that time, he said there’s been a good deal of changes, including the neighborhood, costs to run a business and the customers who stop by.
“That’s the tough part about having a business for so long, you lose touch with some people, you lose some people. But as a business and as the resilience of this community through the eras, there’s always adaptations to make and new people to welcome,” he said. “And that’s not only good business, but that’s good community.”
Owner Lee Daugherty brought Alexandre’s to Oak Lawn roughly 20 years ago.
Christine Vo / Staff Photographer
The demand for retail locations in Oak Lawn comes with an increased cost and not enough space.
As of December, around 4% of retail space in Oak Lawn was vacant, according to Bill Kitchens, the senior director of market analytics at Costar Group.
Since 2020, the vacancy rate has increased, as well as the price to rent, according to CoStar Group. In the span of five years, CoStar estimates there’s been almost a $10 increase in asking price per square foot.
Oak Lawn is an alluring place, where many businesses have survived for years and have good relationships with their landlords, who see them as trusted tenants, Jake Milner of Davidson Bogel Real Estate said. A majority of the owners in Oak Lawn have owned their spaces for generations.
For spaces that are on the market now, he says they’re a hot commodity.
“I think as the world’s gotten more expensive, it just seems like landlords are more willing to risk getting a little bit better rent to potentially lose the tenants, which is just not something in these areas we’ve seen ever, at least in my 15 years of doing it,” he said.
Still, rent for retail spaces in Oak Lawn is about 25% cheaper per square foot compared with other areas of Dallas, such as Knox-Henderson or even Greenville Avenue, said Sarah Lamb, the director of urban retail at Davidson Bogel.
Getting a foot into Oak Lawn still comes at a higher cost.
“Uptown went through all that too, and we just all kind of closed our eyes and missed it with all the new high-rises,” Milner said. “You didn’t think about all these little retailers that went out. But my opinion is, it’s just purely a proximity and pricing game.”
Crush opened its doors in July 2024. The former furniture store required eight months of renovations to become a powerhouse club dedicated to hosting drag shows, karaoke nights and occasional monthlong seasonal themes, like its ‘Hot Frosty’ during its December pop-up.
Getting to opening day was a rocky journey, said Andrew Perre as he sat beside his husband and co-owner, David Perre, inside the club.
“We faced a lot of bumps in the road along the way,” Andrew Perre said.
David Perre (left) and Andrew Perre own Crush Nightclub in Oak Lawn on the corner of Cedar Springs and Oak Lawn Ave.
Christine Vo / Staff Photographer
The Perres said their biggest setback was paying almost $12,000 in rent and loans while still working on the unopened club. Despite having a plentiful clientele, the bills overtook them in summer 2025, Andrew Perre said.
“There was no wiggle room for a slow period or anything like that,” Andrew said. “So it was working for a long time, but then it just got so hard mentally on us, because you’re trying to balance everything, but then also stay happy and stay creative.”
The dance club right off the corner of the strip closed in September.
“You pour your heart and soul into something, and at the drop of a hat, it’s like, this could possibly all be taken away from you, after all the hard work, all the memories,” David Perre said.
There was also a lot of embarrassment, Andrew said. The two expected to see negativity and possible judgment after announcing the closing. Instead, they said they were encouraged by other Oak Lawn business owners to tell their story.
The two posted a GoFundMe and shared the journey they went through to start Crush, and how much keeping the club open meant to them. Being honest about needing help to cover club expenses was scary, Andrew Perre said.
“I cried a couple times at home just because there were so many emotions at that time, like being scared of closing, then being vulnerable, and then just seeing so many people donate what they could,” he said.
The GoFundMe raised more than $8,000. While it wasn’t enough to keep Crush open, the outpour of public support drew eyes to the club and bought them a solution.
“We were able to find someone that we actually already knew, who’s in the community and we sold a small percentage of our company to them for a certain amount, that basically was able to let us pay off all of our loans and really just be able to be in here doing what we do,” Andrew Perre said.
Crush reopened on Nov. 7 after closing for seven weeks.
Bronx D. Davenport performs at Crush on Sunday, Nov. 30, 2025, in Oak Lawn. Six drag performers danced and lip-synced at the Hot Frosty holiday pop-up.
Christine Vo / Staff Photographer
The neighborhood everyone wants to be in
Establishments like Crush, Alexandre’s and Eatzi’s, along with a connection to the Katy Trail, large walkable areas and a united neighborhood, have made Oak Lawn the place to live, Milner said. On top of that, downtown’s business circuit and the residential area of Highland Park have bled into Oak Lawn, he said.
“They kind of merged,” he said. “A lot of the things have kind of pushed up into Oak Lawn, both from retail, residential, everything. In my opinion, and I’m biased, but, it’s the most attractive area for growth that’s why we’ve seen so many different high-rises and new retailers and all these other sub districts that connect to it.”
The Oak Lawn Committee plays a key role in helping the area balance growth with stability.
The committee was created in the 1980s when many residents saw just how popular Oak Lawn was becoming, said Adam Murphy, the committee’s president.
The committee’s mission is to protect the quality of life within Oak Lawn, generally bounded within Woodall Rodgers Freeway, North Central Expressway, Highland Park, Inwood Road, Harry Hines Boulevard and Oak Lawn Avenue.
If a multihousing complex or office space wants to be built in Oak Lawn, developers try to garner support from the Oak Lawn Committee before submitting zoning or project plans to the city for approval.
While the group isn’t a governing body, Murphy said they make suggestions to developers who present to them, such as changes to design standards, parking space size, the conservation of green space and preference on how buildings should be built.
More people working in surrounding areas may find themselves wanting to live in Oak Lawn because of proximity to a plethora of amenities, including restaurants, retail, nightlife, parks, trails, cultural events and its great sense of community, he said.
“Talent wants to be in these cool areas,” he said.
Places like Norman’s Japanese Grill and Formas Pilates, a high-end invite-only Pilates studio out of LA, opening in Oak Lawn are causing a shift in the neighborhood by attracting more people who want access to the fun and accepting place Oak Lawn already is, Lamb said.
“A lot of the retailers will want to go where there’s a lot of density,” Lamb said. “I think that’s a lot of the draw of Oak Lawn. But I also think that it sometimes just takes one or two really good operators to really kind of cultivate and make a change, either positive or negative, to a retail corridor.”
Some are fearful that the changes in Oak Lawn, including new businesses, housing and luxury amenities, could steadily increase prices in the neighborhood and push out community members who have lived there for years.
People being priced out of Oak Lawn is, unfortunately, a reality, Murphy said. Dallas, however, is seeing prices increase throughout various areas of the city, he said, not just in Oak Lawn.
While affordability might be a citywide issue, seeing residents and businesses leave Oak Lawn behind due to pricing is still a loss, Murphy said.
“When you start to lose some of the people, and they get priced out and they’ve lived here for a long time, hopefully their legacy and their history and the memories they built, still stays behind,” he said. “I believe it does.”
When David and Andrew Perre opened Crush, they wanted it to be another space in Oak Lawn where anyone could feel welcomed and have fun. Clubs like Crush not only continue the legacy of what Oak Lawn is, but also provide jobs, community and a safe space, David Perre said.
“If there’s anybody that wants to open a business in Oak Lawn, I would say, go for it,” he said. “Shoot your shot, because if you don’t shoot your shot, somebody else is going to shoot it for you.”
Throughout his 21 years on the Cedar Springs strip, Daugherty said some of the customers he had when he first opened have sadly either moved away or passed on. He continues to greet new customers five days a week when the bar opens, and he plans to keep it that way.
“I hope to live on this street and run this business for the rest of my life, but there’s one thing that has proven correct in the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s, now the ‘10s and the ‘20s, is that this community is resilient, it is strong, it knows how to fight back and it knows how to persevere,” he said. “That to me means more than anything.”