Why you will get new roads - and more traffic - soon near 35W and 287

The first couple of years classes were held at Eaton High School in the Northwest district, the roads leading to and from the campus were often congested but the view was mostly prairie.

That’s about to change.

A new neighborhood known as Wellington is being built just south of U.S. 287 and west of Willow Springs Road, essentially across the street from the high school, which opened in 2015 near the Fort Worth-Haslet border.

And it’s a huge, master-planned residential project.

The Wellington neighborhood will feature 1,679 single-family homes and possibly up to 1,459 multifamily homes built on 600 acres.

The first phase of the project will be construction of 507 homes, and that work is expected to begin this year. Homes likely will be priced in the mid-$300,000s and higher, and lots for those homes will be for sale beginning in February and April, said Ben Luedtke, Hanover executive vice president.

“Build-out of the project will be subject to what the market dictates, but will probably be about seven years,” Luedtke said.

Hanover doesn’t have a time line for development of the multifamily housing, said Leudtke.

Workers have already built some of the web of new residential roads needed to get people in and out of this area that just months ago was vacant prairie. Crews also are busy installing ornamental street lights and brick perimeter fencing.

Residents of far north Fort Worth, Haslet and other communities wedged between Interstate 35W and U.S. 287 — often called the “Decatur cutoff” — are concerned about traffic problems in the area.

“It’s a phased project, and I talked to them and I’m telling them to take your time on building the homes but get the roads in,” said Dennis Shingleton, a Fort Worth City Council member whose district includes the development.

Despite the traffic concerns, Shingleton said the project will accomplish several of the area cities’ goals.

In addition to putting in several miles of residential roads, builders will connect two previously separate sections of the same thoroughfare — Blue Mound Road East, which goes to I-35W via Keller-Hicks Road, and Blue Mound Road West, which continues into Saginaw.

That new Blue Mound Road connection will help alleviate the difficulty of east-west movement in the area.

Hanover is building the Blue Mound Road extension within its project boundaries, and Fort Worth is chipping in bond dollars to build a roundabout entrance at the intersection of Blue Mound Road and Willow Springs Road.

Home builders expected to work in the area include: American Legend Homes, Beazer Homes, Gehan Homes, Highland Homes, K Hovvnanian Homes and Standard Pacific/CalAtlantivc Homes.

This story was originally published January 14, 2018 at 9:42 PM with the headline "Why you will get new roads - and more traffic - soon near 35W and 287."