The Transport Politic has an interesting post where they propose an Interstate Railway System:

Below is the transport politic’s vision of the 21st century’s Interstate system: a network of 10,000 miles of high-speed rail and roughly 30,000 miles of upgraded standard-speed track. The system would provide electrified 200 mph service (in yellow) between the biggest cities on the East and West coasts and connect every metropolitan area of more than 100,000 people in the continental states with at least standard-speed rail (in brown).

Of particular interest to those of us around these parts is the Texas map, shown at right. I think the momentum for high-speed rail here in Texas is building, slowly but steadily – and I think when it does come, it’ll be a hit. (For the record, I prefer the Texas High-Speed Rail & Transportation Corporation proposal over the current federal government proposal and the dead Trans-Texas Corridor proposal.)

The Frank Building, being built at the corner of Henderson and the Oleander Walk by developer Joe Frank, has made rapid progress since the last time we looked at it. The building’s now fully vertical, and its windows have gone in as well. There’s a load of bricks sitting behind it, and the scaffolding indicates that the facade should be going up soon. Work also continues on the interior. The architect of the Frank Building is Ames Fender.

The Frank Building is a mixed-use development consisting of a 1,504 square foot ground-level commercial space and a 1,763 square foot second-floor apartment featuring two bedrooms, two baths, extensive storage, and an open-plan living room-kitchen-dining room setup.

For more information, check out Joe’s web site. I’m looking forward to seeing the building get finished out – I’m sure we’ll do a tour of the project once it’s complete.

919 Travis is a newly finished mixed-use building on the Near Southside. It’s one of the earliest results of the Near Southside’s new award-winning form-based zoning code. Most everything in the Near Southside is zoned either T4 or T5, which indicate things like maximum setback, minimum and maximum heights, and so forth. There is a qualifier on some T4 zones, though – the “-N” qualifier, which indicates “neighborhood” zoning. A T4-N zone prevents single-use non-residential. It’s an important part of keeping the district from becoming entirely, say, medical office space. Another T4-N zone that everybody ought to be familiar with is the area centered on Oleander Walk – development there shows the T4-N zoning at work, in the form of all-residential developments like Texana Townhomes and Oleander Place or residential-including mixed-use like the in-progress Frank Building at Henderson & Oleander.

919 Travis is located in a T4-N zone, and as a result it is a medical office on the first floor and an apartment of around 1,200 square feet on the second floor. It was developed by Moss & Jordan Associates and designed by Terry R. Cunningham Architects.

It’s a good example of the kind of small-scaled infill that will slowly but steadily bring life back to the Near Southside, as it approaches a “critical mass” of development that would lead to larger-scaled projects.

Image by the City of Fort Worth.

EDIT: For readers joining us from the Streetsblog Network or Streetsblog itself, check the bottom of the post for an overview map of the starter system and the areas it will serve.

Things have been a little quiet on the streetcar front since the presentation to the City Council in December, but that’s not to say there’s nothing going on. I’ve done some asking around and have some updates on how things are going for the Fort Worth Streetcar – steps towards both funding and more detailed planning are well underway. We are assuredly moving forward on this. Here’s the latest:

- Work is underway to get access to regional toll revenue that NCTCOG (North Central Texas Council Of Governments) wants to allow for partial funding of the project. This may require some work in Austin, but from what I understand, signs are positive. The hope is for everything to be lined up by late spring/early summer, with those NCTCOG funds available by the end of the year.

- In the meantime, the city is determining the feasibility of issuing an RFP (Request For Proposal) for a smaller study about economic development, ridership, and operational details in the spring, depending on available funding.

- The city is in the process of scheduling meetings with the boards of the three affected TIF districts as soon as possible. The TIF boards need to determine whether to amend their project plans to include the streetcar project.

- The city’s community relations department is working on a dedicated web site for the streetcar project, for public education & outreach purposes.

Things are definitely still moving towards getting the streetcar project fully designed & funded, and I’m sure that there will be plenty more news to come.

EDIT: For those of you joining us from the Streetsblog Network or Streetsblog itself, here’s a map of the proposed starter system:

The Fort Worth streetcar starter system would create a Downtown loop, linked via two major lines to the Cultural District and the Near Southside, and via a couple of smaller spurs to Uptown and Evans & Rosedale Village.

At the Crockett & Currie intersection, West 7th’s two big apartment buildings and the Movie Tavern building are making steady progress. Windows and balcony doors are going in, and some facade work is underway (especially on the lower levels). I like that they kept Crockett at its old width – the compact street and 5 story buildings will give a good sense of enclosure for pedestrians.

Below, some individual shots of the apartment buildings.

Here’s the view of the apartment buildings from the Museum Place area.

Meanwhile, the facade continues to go up on the first of the development’s office buildings, at 7th & Foch.

All of these buildings – the apartments, the Movie Tavern building, and the office building – will feature ground-floor retail.

The second phase of Hilltop, the Village Homes condo development at 7th & Haskell in the Cultural District, has progressed quite far. The project’s stucco facade is recognizable under the scaffolding. We reported on the completion of Phase 1 last year.

The Village Homes web site lists Hilltop units being available between $499,000 to $534,000. For more information, check out the Village Homes web site, homesofcharacter.com.

Thought I’d share this video, which is a part of the excellent online exhibit For People and Places: The Work of David M. Schwarz Architects, created by the National Building Museum and the Institute for Classical Architecture and Classical America. This video, “Restoring Civitas,” talks about the revitalization of Downtown Fort Worth over the years, starting with the infamous “Gruen Plan” of the ’50s, and transitioning to the contextual, traditional urbanism renewal that Schwarz and his firm have been guiding since the ’80s. Included are archive footage of the Gruen Plan, interviews with Schwarz and his partners along with Ed Bass, discussions of revitalization techniques, and a bit about building Sundance West, built in 1988 as the first housing in Downtown since World War II and a real unknown in terms of success before its construction. For the curious, especially for those who aren’t from Fort Worth that might be joining us from Streetsblog and the Streetsblog Network, some of the other Schwarz projects shown in the video include the Fort Worth Central Library, the Maddox Muse Center, the Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass Performance Hall, the Sid Richardson Museum, the Tarrant County Family Law Center, the Sundance East block, the Chase Bank Building, and the redevelopment of the former Sanger Brothers department store into the Sanger Lofts. The web site for Downtown Fort Worth, Inc. is dfwi.org, and the site for the Sundance Square district is sundancesquare.com.

There are many more videos, and lots of photos and text descriptions, online at the exhibit’s site, forpeopleandplaces.org. Any fan of traditional architecture and traditional urbanism ought to check out this exhibit of Schwarz’s work, which also has features on projects from Washington, D. C., the Yale campus, and others in addition to Downtown Fort Worth.

Across from Villa De Leon on Samuels Avenue, Lincoln Properties is well underway with their next large apartment complex in the Trinity Bluff development. Even with the current economy, Lincoln is pressing ahead with this and another development on the Bluffs, at least in part due to the success of their initial Lincoln Trinity Bluff development – said to be the fastest lease-up in the company’s history. Apartments in and around Downtown Fort Worth are usually always pretty much full, so I imagine there is still good demand for rental living.

The current Lincoln development will be a four-story structure with a parking garage to the rear, buffering the apartments from the nearby railroad tracks. While I have not seen a rendering, a nearby facade sample shows that the building will be a brick & stone design, similar (but not identical) to the original Lincoln Trinity Bluff building.

Above is a view showing the new building’s framing starting to go up across from Villa De Leon (which is getting its stucco exterior at this time). Below is a view showing the rear parking structure, and a view from Samuels as the first level of framing goes up. Click on any for a bigger view.

Time for another look at The Carillion Group’s redevelopment of 311 Bryan, the former Miller Manufacturing Building in the Near Southside’s South Main Village district that’s being converted to loft apartments. Big work has been done to the building since the last time we checked in, so let’s get on with it. Read the rest of this entry »

Pegasus News has the confirmation. And I appreciate the tip of the hat to us for breaking the story on Wednesday (thanks to commenter “Insano” for the tip). So, there you go – Jake’s Hamburgers is confirmed to be headed to Sundance Square.