City Place Plans Updated, Superblock To Remain

The site plans for the City Place development in Downtown have been updated. The redevelopment of the former Tandy Center has hit some snags, but development still appears to be moving forward – just in a reduced and less-than-ideal fashion.

The condo plans for the south tower have pretty much been dropped at this point, of course, and the redevelopment of the old mall into retail space is now less elaborate.

As seen in the site plan, the mall redevelopment includes three retail spaces on Throckmorton. On Taylor, the retail space is now marked as ground-level office space.

Disappointingly, the long-awaited partial demolition of the mall and the re-opening of 2nd Street as a through street is no longer happening, at least not anytime soon. That space is simply marked as “future retail & parking” with “potential” re-opening of 2nd. The existing extension of the south tower would be demolished for a parking garage and a bit more retail space, a garage that may or may not allow for 2nd to go all the way through again.

The elevation above shows the changes to be made to the mall, and the remaining blockage of 2nd on the left.

Finally, a look at the overall view, including the south tower’s “TBD” status.

It’s good that some work is still progressing on the old Tandy Center, though we’re disappointed that the plans to re-open 2nd have been shelved for now. City Place is a relic of the old school of planning with its huge 3-block-long superblock, which impedes traffic (of all sorts – pedestrian, bicycle, car, etc.) and discourages the creation of a more lively streetscape. Downtown Fort Worth’s unusually small 200×200 blocks are one of its biggest assets, making it extremely walkable – everywhere that pattern is interrupted, such as at City Place, we lose some of that great walkability. For the time being, the development will continue to be a wall blocking off points to the west.

We hope that when that “eventually” happens and the south tower is redeveloped, whoever is in charge of that project will see fit to leave room in the plan to re-open 2nd and give that part of Downtown a little connectivity back again.