So Long, Partner

"There is no partnership," Rasansky says. "When you sign a lease agreement--if there was a lease agreement--when the lease is up, it's up."

As harsh as the words sound, Rasansky may be right: Although the vendors repeatedly use the word "partnership" in describing their relationship with the city, no document establishing any formal business relationship between the city and the vendors exists. In fact, the vendors do not even have written leases describing their current rental terms with the city. Although Barfoot says city officials have said they would give the vendors several months' advance notice of eviction, he concedes that the city is legally entitled to give the vendors the boot pretty much at will.

But before that happens, Barfoot says he hopes the city will remember that the vendors have been loyal tenants at a time when tenants were hard for the city to come by. Now that the neighborhood is on the rise, Barfoot hopes city officials won't turn their backs on the ones who helped bring it to this point.

"Shed Two is truly the last place in Dallas where you will rub elbows with every level. We don't want it to lose its intrinsic value," Barfoot says.