By Chatashia Brown, Managing Director, Opportunity & Impact
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
Jennifer Scripps grew up in Dallas dreaming of life in a big city. She pursued her dream in New York, Boston and Philadelphia before finding her way back to Dallas in 2007 to work with the Perot Museum of Nature and Science. What she found when she returned surprised her: the Arts District was taking shape, Klyde Warren Park was rising from a freeway cap and trails were beginning to stitch neighborhoods together.
Now, nearly 20 years later, Scripps leads Downtown Dallas, Inc. (DDI) as its President and CEO and holds a community seat on the DRC’s Board of Directors, helping turn the momentum she came home to into the downtown that exists today.
A neighborhood—not just a business district
For more than 70 years, Downtown Dallas, Inc. has been the principal champion, advocate and steward for Dallas’ urban core. Over the last two decades, DDI’s work has transformed to simultaneously manage a growing central business district and cultivate an authentic, livable neighborhood.
Today, Downtown Dallas is home to more than 16,000 residents, supported by 20+ acres of green space, the largest contiguous Arts District in the U.S., a thriving food and beverage scene and two A-rated DISD choice schools serving pre-K through 12th grade.
“This work has evolved,” said Scripps. “We’re not just a business district anymore. We’re a neighborhood, and everything we do reflects that.”
Creating a safer, more welcoming downtown
Among DDI’s recent accomplishments, Scripps is most proud of the Safe in the City initiative, a multi-pronged safety strategy supporting long-term solutions like housing, re-entry support and community court expansion. With support from the Tomorrow Fund, the DRC was an early investor in the Safe in the City initiative, helping strengthen safety and vitality in the heart of the Dallas Region.
Working with Boston Consulting Group, DDI identified gaps in public safety resourcing and helped make the case for a more coordinated, city-wide response. Thanks to the initiative and its many partners, crime in Downtown Dallas decreased by more than 10% from 2024 to 2025—a trend that has continued throughout 2026—and approximately 400 individuals previously without stable shelter have received housing support.
“This is what it takes to help Downtown be the place people want to work, live and visit,” said Scripps. “And we’re not done.”
Putting Dallas on the Global Stage
With Dallas serving as a host city for the FIFA World Cup 2026™, DDI worked alongside the FIFA Organizing Committee, Visit Dallas and the City of Dallas to prepare downtown for global visitors and ensure local businesses and residents were well-positioned to benefit from all the event entails. To help small businesses understand what to expect, DDI hosted more than 200 attendees at a Merchant Meeting in April to detail everything from park activations and street closures to hotel demand and visitor patterns.
The World Cup also sparked a long-term vision for the streets themselves. Through a partnership with Better Block, DDI activated Main Street by converting parking lanes into pedestrian-friendly spaces with seating, pop-up vendor booths and performance areas. For four Saturdays, Main Street closed to cars entirely.
“I hope this pilot program is successful and becomes a standard offering in Downtown,” said Scripps. “This is about showing what our streets can be.”
And when fans from around the world arrived, Scripps wanted them to experience exactly that.
“Whether the fan hails from Argentina, Japan or Croatia, we want them to go home and tell their friends and colleagues about the wonderful stay they had in Dallas. We are ready to welcome the world.”
That spirit of civic pride and possibility is exactly what Scripps brings to her seat on the DRC’s Board of Directors, grounding regional conversations in the lived experience of a downtown that is still writing its story. Under her leadership, Downtown Dallas is no longer just the center of the region’s business activity; it is becoming a destination, a community and a showcase for what the Dallas Region is capable of.