Would proposed apartments increase traffic on West 7th? What the developer and city say

A proposed 595-unit apartment complex at Montgomery Plaza will again go before Fort Worth’s zoning commission Wednesday, after a disagreement about traffic delayed its approval in September.

Members of the One Montgomery Plaza homeowners association voiced concerns that the new apartments would increase the already dense amount of traffic along the West Seventh Street corridor. The homeowners association represents owners of the 240 condominium units in the former Montgomery Ward department store building on West Seventh Street.

Montgomery Plaza’s owners, KIMCO Realty, said the apartments would reduce traffic by 38% because five retailers would be closed for the buildings and a new access point to White Settlement Road would be built.

A separate study by the homeowners’ association shows an 85% increase during morning rush hour.

The area was already plagued by congestion from rapid growth made worse by road updates funded by the 2018 bond program.

Representatives for the homeowners associations argued KIMCO’s traffic study didn’t accurately capture the project’s impact on traffic.

KIMCO’s study relied on a traffic engineering manual and didn’t include any on-the-ground observations, said attorney Ray Oujesky, who represented the homeowners association before the commission in September.

Chris Herman, KIMCO’s director of development, responded that his company’s study did in fact use on-site observations, and said both studies showed an increase in morning traffic, because new residents would be leaving the apartments to go to work.

That part of the complex has next to no traffic during morning rush hour because retailers are not open, Herman told the commission.

The city’s development services department reviewed and approved KIMCO’s study, a spokesperson for the city’s development services department wrote in a text. The city staff has recommended approval.

In a report prepared ahead of Wednesday’s hearing, city engineer Tom Simerly wrote KIMCO’s traffic study “accurately represents the theoretical impact of the proposed development on the area infrastructure.”

The report did not mention the study submitted by the homeowners’ association.

Members of the homeowners association still contend they still need more information.

Treasurer Brian Sinkiewicz said KIMCO’s study overestimates the amount of traffic currently coming out of the shopping complex.

This means the traffic numbers from the apartment complex will seem like a reduction by comparison, he said.

Sinkiewicz said his organization plans to push the city for more information about how the proposed complex will impact the broader West 7th area.

He pointed to the area’s rapid development and argued KIMCO’s study doesn’t paint an accurate picture of what traffic will look like when the apartments open in the next two to three years.

Representatives for KIMCO Realty did not respond to requests for comment on Monday.

The case will go before the zoning commission again Wednesday. If approved it will go before the City Council on Nov. 8.

The 595 apartments would be split among two buildings — a five-story building containing 315 units and a seven-story building containing 280 units.

Both would sit on top of a combined 20,000 square-feet of retail space in a similar setup to the apartment complexes east of Montgomery Plaza.

The project would force the closure of retailers Five Below, Office Depot, PetSmart, Dollar Tree and Michael’s.

It’s not yet known whether any of those shops would be included in the 20,000 square feet of space planned for the ground floor of the two new apartment buildings.