Report to Members & Partners

August 2002

 

Website - www.fortworthsouth.org - Five years ago, 16-year old Trevor Scott designed and implemented Fort Worth South, Inc.'s first website. The Webmaster is older, better, and still beholding. The new and improved Internet access to Fort Worth South information is now available for your use. If you cannot find what you need on the site, please email Nancy Berger at nancy@fortworthsouth.org. There's lots of information about living, working, playing and investing here, with more coming. There are things like a list of "unchained" restaurants, details about apartment complexes with info about size, amenities, and price, architectural drawings of our portfolio of homes, a listing of commercial office buildings and churches, past newsletters, info about Fort Worth South, Inc., and its members, and Internet links to other informational resources. We hope you find it helpful.

 

Schaumburg Lofts - The eight-unit, $1.2 million, two-story, for-purchase, townhome project located at 815 W. Daggett Street, near the intersection of Daggett and College, a few blocks south of Vickery, will soon break ground. Architect Ken Schaumburg plans to live in one of the units and walk next door to his firm's new design studio. All but one on the units have been pre-sold, so plans are moving forward to design and build 12 additional townhomes on adjacent vacant property. For more information call (817) 336-7077.

 

Rosedale - The current construction along Rosedale, west of Main, is Southwestern Bell installing underground communication conduits. They will finish in October. TXU Gas (Oncor) will install new gas lines from September through December. The City of Fort Worth replaces and upgrades its water & sewer lines, in a $6 million project, between November and July 2003.

 

TMAC - Texas Manufacturing Assistance Center is a partially state-sponsored team of manufacturing and business consultants with offices at the Business Assistance Center, 1150 South Freeway (Guinn Campus, I-35 & Rosedale). They specialize in site selection, project construction planning and facility design. They use industrial engineering and lean manufacturing methodology to optimize building floor plan layouts. Quality folks. Contact Bruce Bishop at 817-307-0492 or Pat O'Connor at 817-312-6513.

 

Café Chadra - Nehme (pronounced Na-me) El-Bitar has opened a new little restaurant serving lunch and dinner at 1704 Galveston, across Allen Street from John Peter Smith hospital. Offering a taste of the Mediterranean, the cafe is open for lunch and dinner, Monday through Saturday until 10 pm. Nehme recently worked at Byblos on North Main.

 

Whitsell Florist - Carol King says that her father Darrell Whitsell bought an existing flower shop at 1506 W. Magnolia in November 1943. Carol and James King continue to serve floral customers from what is likely the oldest retail business establishment along West Magnolia Avenue.

 

UTA Student Project - Seven graduate students recently completed a Project Planning coarse within the School of Urban and Public Affairs under the tutelage of Instructor Mike Brennan. Mike is also an employee of the City Planning Department. The course work focused on creating implementable plans for specific redevelopment opportunities in Fort Worth South. The product of their work was presented in both oral and written form to the FWS Development Committee on August 12. The projects included: 1. Identifying proposed park and green space that could be acquired with Tax Increment Finance funds; 2. Adaptively reusing the Motheral Printing plant on South Main Street (now owned by FWISD) as a Success High School; 3. Redeveloping and infilling the Leuda-May-St. Louis neighborhood with new residential structures; and 4. Creating a Public Improvement District to fund the establishment of a 10-officer dedicated police bike patrol and a neighborhood cleanup crew. Our thanks to the students who helped advance the revitalization agenda: Shad Comeaux, Amanda Cuba, Alan Haataja, Chung Soo Kim, Alberto Mares, Colin Maycock, and Heather Zrubek.

 

Fresh Produce - There's one month remaining to buy fresh produce at Jack Finley's vegetable stand located on the corner of W. Rosedale and Hemphill Streets. Most of the produce comes from Lipan on the western edge of Hood County. Each day the fresh produce is driven 60 miles into Fort Worth. The selection includes: strawberries, watermelons, cantaloupe, tomatoes, pears, oranges, apples, grapes, plums, onions, peppers, beans, and okra. Jack's been selling produce at this corner for the last five years.

 

School's In - The student population at schools in Fort Worth South includes: Trimble Tech High School - 1,675 students, Success High School (at Trimble Tech during the evenings) - 350 students, Accelerated High School (8^th graders at 1066 W. Magnolia) - 180 students, DeZavala Elementary - 425 students, VanZandt-Guinn Elementary - 301students, Lily B. Clayton Elementary – 470, Tarleton State University's School of Laboratory Sciences (1501 Enderly on the Baylor All Saints campus) - 43.

 

Delinquent Taxes - As of July 15, 2002, there were 664 properties within the development district with delinquent property taxes amounting to $2.3 million.

Magnolia Village Mixed-Use - The 128 property owners in an area that we call Magnolia Village have been invited to an informal neighborhood meeting on Thursday evening, September 5 at 7 PM at the Paris Coffee Shop to talk about mixed-use zoning and redevelopment activities in the area. This is in connection with the neighborhood effort to rezone properties in the village to the new mixed-use category MU-1. The "village" area includes both sides of W. Magnolia between Jennings and Eighth and those properties near the intersections of Hemphill, Rosedale, and Magnolia. Other property owners in FWS are welcome to attend.

 

Partners Breakfast - Designer's Resource Studio - Members and member prospects are invited to join the crowd at 8 am, Wednesday, September 4 at the recently remodeled Designer’s Resource Studio at 1612 Park Place Avenue. Kathy and Dennis Weverka will host the one-hour mixer. The objective of these monthly gatherings is to generate business opportunities for, and among, Fort Worth South members.

 

Property Values - FWS has been tracking the property value changes as reported by the Tarrant Appraisal District within the development district since 1994. During the four years 1994 through 1997, property values in the district went down 9% while property values were going up 16% in the rest of the City, and going up 23% across Tarrant County. We created Tax Increment Finance District #4 (TIF) in 1997 to capture the anticipated property value appreciation from the revitalization work. Since then we have been interested in value changes on properties within the TIF boundaries. These boundaries are generally coincident with the boundaries of Fort Worth Southside Development District with the exception of the tax-exempt hospital properties and most of the residential property in Fairmount, which are not included. In 1998 values of properties in the TIF went down 1.74%, in 1999 values went down 1.46%, in 2000 values went up 5.75%, in 2001 values went up 7.69%, in 2002 values went up 4.27%. There are about 1,300 property owners of 2,900 parcels in TIF #4. On a countywide basis, there were 60,000 appeals to 2002 tax bills submitted to the Tarrant Appraisal District. The 18,000 unresolved claims are to be settled by the end of the year.

 

Gallery Night - Fort Worth's semi-annual evening trek through the many community art galleries passes through Fort Worth South - or as some say SoHo - south of the hospitals. Don’t forget to visit Designer's Resource Studio, Schmedel & Reznikoff, and Alpine Art Gallery on Park Place Avenue west of Eighth Avenue and visit the southside herd outside Johnny Pate’s studio at 705 W. Magnolia on Saturday, September 7 from 2 pm until 9 pm.

 

W. Magnolia Avenue Acquisition - Fort Worth South, Inc. has acquired a vacant parcel of former city owned land at 2117 W. Magnolia in a residential area in Mistletoe Heights. Through donation and purchase the company has acquired a total of 20,000 sf of vacant land on this quiet street east of Jerome and south of Mistletoe Boulevard. The objective is to see the lots redeveloped with owner occupied residential structures. Architectural plans are on the FWS website and the property is available for purchase.

 

Weekly Advertising - The FW Weekly is preparing a colorful street map of Fort Worth South that will be designed as a pull out supplement to their October 10 issue of the paper. The map will feature local businesses, dining, living opportunities, entertainment, and the unique and historic points of interest within Fort Worth South. Local business ads will surround the walking map. Those interested in advertising should refer to the "current projects" section of the Fort Worth South web site.

 

Bike Patrol - Additional financial resources and a community focus will be necessary if we're to improve the trend of incidents of crime against property in the district. We believe that reestablishing the bike patrol is the most effective deterrent. With the help of UTA student Alan Haataja we now know that a Public Improvement District (PID) can be created. It would cost about $50,000 for each additional police officer/year. Property owners would have to agree to assess themselves to produce a fund to pay for the additional services. At least 50% of property owners, 50% of land value, and 50% of land area would need to support the proposal by signing a petition that would be delivered and approved by the City Council by May of 2003. Property owners would be billed with their normal tax bills in November 2003. The money would be available for use in February 2004. The Downtown Fort Worth PID was created in 1986 and continues in operation. The Camp Bowie PID was created a couple of years ago. They both collect about 10 cents per $100 of property valuation to support extra services in those districts.

 

Have / Want

Want to purchase - 3,000-4,000 sf warehouse or storefront space for live/work space, call Mick 817-877-1969

For sale or partial lease - 810 Lipscomb, doctor’s office building, 5,912 sf bldg on 17,957 sf of land, Gary Vasseur. 817-335-7575

 

Membership - Thanks to our most recent new member. There are now 234 members.

Trammell Crow Company

Jim Eagle

Commercial Real Estate

411 W. Seventh St., Suite 600, FW 76102

 

Painting the Vision - FWS is about communicating and implementing a vision about what the neighborhood can become. We’re also walking on the bridge as we build it, and it occasionally feels a little precarious! Please remember, your intellectual involvement and financial support is important. Dues revenue from members is our primary source of funds. Membership applications can be downloaded from the website or acquired with a quick phone call.

 

This monthly newsletter goes to 1,302 Fort Worth South, Inc. members and partners (768 by email). Past newsletters are available on our website at www.fortworthsouth.org. Fort Worth Southside Development District, Inc. is a private, member funded, non-profit development company dedicated to the revitalization of the near Southside. Don Scott & Nancy Berger, 1606 Mistletoe Blvd, Fort Worth, TX 76104, (817) 923-1649.