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Creating Vibrant Neighborhood Centers-Reinventing urban life

Bringing people back into aging commercial areas means loosening suburban-style regulations and zoning standards, planners say

By Sandra Baker
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

FORT WORTH – More than two years after a task force was established to review the decline of some of the city’s once-vibrant commercial corridors, progress is being made to turn those areas around.

"It’s remarkable to see how much development is occurring," says Fernando Costa, the city’s planning director. "We’re really working to change the character of commercial development. While we’ve taken significant steps in the past two years, it’s going to take many more years to change patterns of development that have existed since World War II."

The whole process started years ago, when City Council members began responding to constituent concerns about distressed commercial areas. Suburban sprawl had taken its toll on the central city. Shopping centers and big-box developments attracted people away from the inner city, leaving neighborhoods abandoned and fighting to survive.

"We have too many examples of that disinvestment," Costa says.

A 12-member task force, including four council members and eight business and civic leaders, was formed in January 2000, and Leland Consulting Group of Denver was hired to assess the economics of redevelopment. Their final report was issued in June.

The group identified 31 commercial corridors in need of assistance, Costa says.

Realizing that revitalizing 31 areas was a daunting task, the list was narrowed to 15. From that group, the task force prioritized the top five areas as Hemphill Street, East Lancaster Avenue, East Rosedale Street, West Seventh Street and Camp Bowie Boulevard.

Within those corridors, the task force identified "urban villages," or areas that can be redeveloped to promote compact pedestrian traffic by a variety of land uses, Costa says. The task force concluded that by increasing residential development in those areas, it can create the demand for commercial services and vice versa, he says.

One of the task force’s major decisions was to determine that the city needed to change the way it thinks about commercial development, he says.

Foremost, the task force saw the need to change zoning classifications. The City Council eventually adopted low-density and high-density mixed-used classifications that basically promote retail and residential use on the same piece of property.

"The city had been its own worst enemy," Costa says. "Its own zoning prohibited the types of areas the group wanted to create."

Also key to urban village revitalization is the Neighborhood Empowerment Zone program, Costa says. To promote development of the urban villages, the city can do such things as abate property taxes, waive developer fees and release city liens on abandoned buildings with absentee owners.

Phillip Poole, a Fort Worth architect and real estate consultant who served on the task force, says the zoning changes were vital, particularly because an estimated 10,000 open lots in the central city are ripe for redevelopment.

But there also needs to be some relaxation of development standards and some codes, Poole says. Many of today’s standards are suitable to suburban development, where lots are larger and streets can be built wider, but it’s harder to apply those standards to existing properties, he says.

"We can’t refill with things that don’t fit," Poole says.

For example, if standards and codes weren’t relaxed and zoning changed, the redevelopment of the former Googins Building on North Main and 20th streets by businesswoman Deyla Guadiana, and the Modern Drug building at Hemphill Street and Magnolia Avenue by Fort Worth’s Daedulus Development, would have never occurred, Poole says.

Those buildings, both nearly 100 years old, were in serious disrepair, but they again have successful retailers on the street level and loft apartments upstairs. Both required investments of several hundred thousands of dollars.

"The market will dictate what will happen," Poole says.

But a rezoning request needs approval from a majority of the property owners. Today, five of the urban villages are now completely rezoned, three are partially rezoned and petitions are going around the others to get approval.

Because of higher levels of organization and resources, some of the urban village developments are moving faster than others. There are many proposed projects that would carry out the task force’s ideas and plans, with some moving closer to fruition than others.

"Projects like this can take two to three years," Poole says.

Some of the projects include the residential and retail development along the west side of Trinity Park called South of Seventh; the development of a retail, office and residential project off Magnolia Avenue called Magnolia Green; the Mercado project, a Hispanic-themed retail project on North Main Street; and the Gateway project at Forest Park and Rosedale Street, where a mixed-use residential and commercial project is planned.

Already under way is Alta Ridglea Village, which is bringing high-density living close to the heavy retail sector along Camp Bowie Boulevard. The project is being built on a tract that was zoned commercial and where a high-rise office building was planned.

But the land was rezoned, and Wood Partners in Houston stepped forward to build an apartment development.

Brandy O’Quinn, executive director of Historic Camp Bowie, says the change is a better use of the land.

It is estimated that the Wood Partners development will bring in 400 new residents, which will fuel retail growth and increase spending in the area, she says.

"We already have so much retail," O’Quinn says. "It will be a big injection of people in the area."

Alex Krieger, chairman of Harvard University’s Design School in the Department of Urban Planning and Design, spoke recently in Fort Worth about redevelopment and says Fort Worth is not alone in its attempts to revitalize its center city.

Krieger says there is a wave of millions of people worldwide who want to move back into their cities and won’t mind walking as long as the path is made interesting.

"These are interesting and very confusing times for cities in America," Krieger says. "City life is being reinvented. There is an emerging urban housing market in some cities."

Some of the other areas targeted for redevelopment are Historic Handley in east Fort Worth, where about $900,000 in private investment will be spent. Priorities for the area include developing a mixed-use anchor project, streetscape and pedestrian improvements along East Lancaster Avenue, and looking at the feasibility of commuter and light rail lines.

Oakland Corners off East Lancaster and Oakland Boulevard has a commitment of about $850,000 in private investment, but the area is seeking two national retailers and a national restaurant franchisee. Goals for the neighborhood are to develop a quality anchor retail center with a grocery store and lessen crime and the perception of crime.

"Fort Worth as a whole is doing very well," Costa says. "We have a great deal of prosperity. These corridors don’t project that prosperity. It’s going to take continued hard work."
Sandra Baker, (817) 390-7727 [email protected]

http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/business/local/5468659.htm

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