East Fort Worth wants more shops and restaurants. Developers say they need more people
Judy Taylor remembers when East Fort Worth was filled with department stores and sit down restaurants.
“We had a shoe store, we had a cafeteria, we had Luby’s, we had many places,” said Taylor, president of the Handley Neighborhood Association.
Taylor and a group of other east Fort Worth residents have been lobbying developers to bring back commercial development to help their neighborhoods thrive, like it did when East Lancaster was main thoroughfare between Fort Worth and Dallas before Interstate 30 was built in 1957.
But developers say the area needs more people, and have pushed for dense housing developments, which residents like Taylor say the area neither wants nor needs.
Apartments, a dirty word
People are afraid of the ghost of Woodhaven, said Dan Haase, a Central Meadowbook resident active in the city of Fort Worth’s efforts to redevelop East Lancaster Avenue.
The Woodhaven neighborhood, northwest Loop 820 and Interstate 30, saw a concentration of apartment building in the 1970s and ‘80s, which corresponded with rising crime rates.
The rapid construction and poor maintenance that led to the problems in an area like Woodhaven could never happen today, said Drew Kile, a multifamily real estate broker with Institutional Property Advisors.
Federal tax laws in the early 1980s encouraged developers to build for the tax write-off rather than economic fundamentals, which is why areas like Woodhaven got overbuilt, Kile said.
The economic realities of today’s housing market make overbuilding much more difficult, he said.
The average cost of building a traditional three-story apartment with no parking garage and no elevator is around $230,000 per unit, Kile said. This means developers need to charge more for rent to make the project economically feasible.
There’s also a larger group of apartment dwellers Kile called “renters by choice” — someone, for example, who makes $80,000 working a higher-end office job who can’t necessarily afford a newer single family home.
“If you want to buy a home that isn’t 40 years old, it’s a $300,000 to $400,000 entry point,” he said. “If you want to be more infill in Fort Worth, that’s probably $500,000 to $600,000.”
Haase spoke in favor of a 420-unit apartment development at 2500 Dottie Lynn Parkway at the Feb. 14 City Council meeting, arguing east Fort Worth needs more housing options and a refresh of its aging apartment stock. The council denied a request to rezone the property for the project after residents showed up in force to oppose it.
Many in east Fort Worth see apartments as a dirty word, Haase told the council.
However, the opposition from residents is more about apartments being built in areas where they aren’t already zoned, said Dave Fulson, director of the John T. White Neighborhood Association.
There’s plenty of places in east Fort Worth already zoned for multifamily, he said, arguing the area needs a pharmacy and more sit down restaurants.
Why developers aren’t coming
East Fort Worth’s problem is density, said former city council member Cary Moon, whose district included parts of east Fort Worth north of Interstate 30, stretching from Beach Street to East Loop 820.
He pointed to Fort Worth’s densest ZIP codes north of Loop 820, where the new H-E-B is going along with a bunch of other amenities.
“East Fort Worth says no to everything until they get a Starbucks or grocery store first,” he said.
Fulson pushed back on argument saying more housing is being build in east Fort Worth every year.
“This lure of you just keep letting us develop, and then all these other goodies that you guys want is going to keep coming. Well, we haven’t seen one damn thing to indicate there’s one ounce of truth in that,” Fulson said.
Most residents drive to Arlington to find a grocery store or sit down restaurant, he said.
Taylor said there are plenty of residents in east Fort Worth who would support new commercial development.
“If you build it we will come,” Taylor said referencing the 1989 film “Field of Dreams.”
The area’s density ranges from 2,000 to 5,000 people per square mile, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. However, the density is double that in parts of far north Fort Worth.
Retailers want to see density of their target clientele, said Theo Thompson, a Fort Worth-based independent retail real estate broker.
“They’re wanting a growing family, like a mother and father with two or three kids. They’re not looking for empty nesters” he said.
It’s not the first time Taylor, of the Handley Neighborhood Association, has heard this explanation.
“We were told we we’re all too old, but I’m sorry, us old people are the ones who have some money,” she said.
The areas around the John T. White neighborhood are also economically depressed, Fulson said.
He recounted giving a tour to a prospective restaurateur who was turned off by people who camp in the woods.
The opening of Interstate 30 contributed to east Fort Worth’s decline, Central Meadowbrook’s Haase said.
It took 17,000 cars off the street overnight, he said.
The city of Fort Worth and Trinity Metro collaborated on the “Advancing East Lancaster” plan, which called for new transit options and pedestrian friendly changes to encourage commercial and residential development.
The city is folding the results of that study a new, “East Lancaster Corridor and Sub-Regional Planning Study,” to help coordinate with other projects from the North Central Texas Council of Governments and the state transportation department.
The group had its first steering committee meeting Feb 16, and anticipates holding public meetings in April, a city spokesperson said in an email to the Star-Telegram.
The area could benefit from more jobs, Moon said. He pointed to a warehouse development that was proposed for Beach Street just west of Gateway Park. The city rejected a zoning change needed for the project after stiff neighborhood opposition.
Still, he argued it would have created jobs, attracted residents, and promoted more development in the area.
