Excellent Near Southside Story in new Weekly by Dan McGraw
June 11, 2009 at 9:47 am | Architecture & Urban Design, Preservation, Transit & Infrastructure, Urban Development | Tags: Architecture, commercial, complete streets, Fairmount, Historic Preservation, Infrastructure, Magnolia Village, Mercado/Stockyards, mixed-use, Near Southside, Residential, Retail, South Main Village, streetcar, Transit, transportation, urban design
Our friend Dan McGraw in the Fort Worth Weekly has written a lengthy, very well-done article about the Near Southside, focusing on people like The Carillion Group‘s Eddie Vanston. Vanston is interviewed, along with architects Robert W. Kelly, Fort Worth South‘s Paul Paine, developer/musician Tom Reynolds, and yours truly.
Some quotes from the story (which runs four pages on the Weekly’s site):
“This is the shit that you don’t get if you just rehab the building and sell it off to someone else,” Vanston said. “When I got into this business in Dallas, I would just fix things up, sell them, fix up another, then sell that.” But in Fort Worth, “I decided that I wanted to own stuff. I wanted to own unique older buildings.” So he spends his days supervising the stripping of old wooden window frames and the buffing of hardwood floors, creating loft apartments in a 1911 warehouse with 16-foot-high ceilings and concrete walls and floors. And getting the washing machines fixed. And, in the process, helping rejuvenate a neighborhood that has been dormant for decades.
Kevin Buchanan, a Fairmount resident and blogger on real estate development trends (forthworthology.com), sees those same trends but thinks the conflicts can be solved. “The Near Southside now has conflicting trends,” Buchanan said. “The medical community needs more office space, which drives prices up. The residents nearby want more restaurants and bars. Sometimes the needs of the residents are at odds with the medical community.”
Robert McKenzie Smith and Ken Schaumburg have done condo developments. Michael Barnard is restoring an old factory and union hall into living spaces and studios for artists. Barnard may even turn part of one building into art galleries, with space for a high-end food court or farmers’ market. Vanston is close to finishing out 15 loft apartments in the old Miller Manufacturing Building on Bryan Street. “Magnolia is becoming a great mix of independent businesses and indie culture,” Buchanan said. “But what is crucial is to get South Main growing as a second major corridor. And what Vanston and the others are doing can make that happen.”
Paul Paine, director of Fort Worth South, also sees the development of a second corridor as crucial. He points out that the city’s plan to run a modern streetcar line down South Main Street and down Magnolia Avenue would link the two areas and promote “urban village” growth. “I think what started with the historic neighborhoods just south of us has pushed into the Magnolia area,” Paine said. “When more historic buildings get revived, I expect a lot of those vacant lots to be developed as new businesses.” “When I started here four years ago, Magnolia was a wannabe,” Paine said. “Now we hear from people from Dallas that this is what Deep Ellum wished it could have been. We still have a lot of challenges left, but we feel we have turned the corner.”
And a great quote from Eddie about the Stockyards and the often infuriating Fort Worth tendancy for “old money” types to sit on property in redeveloping neighborhoods for years or decades at a time to “wait it out”:
He lets loose with some of his pet peeves about Fort Worth and his business. The Stockyards should be bulldozed. “This city has nothing to do with the meat-packing business any more, and everything down there is just the same old crap,” he said.
And he gets a little pissed at the old guard who are holding onto vacant lots waiting to see how everything plays out. “People always make lots of excuses,” he said, “blaming the economy and the market and everything else they can think of [for not developing their real estate]. But they have been holding on to these properties for decades. We’ve proven that this part of town is doable. So these old-money people should just do it. Or sell their property to someone who will.”
Indeed. Go read Dan’s whole article.