Fort Worth deal with mining tech company will support downtown office and hotels
The Fort Worth city council unanimously approved an economic incentive package Tuesday that will help a mineral tech company expand its presence downtown.
Weir Minerals houses its division headquarters in the 777 Main building downtown, which is home to its executive and legal teams. The company will spend $3.4 million to expand and update its downtown office space, along with retaining a number of high-paying positions, and agreeing to direct its business clients to stay in downtown hotels.
In exchange for these investments, the city of Fort Worth will pay the company $185,000, however, the city could take back the money if Weir doesn’t meet its commitments.
Those include a minimum of 260 nights of hotel stays downtown, and maintaining a minimum of 67 jobs with a minimum annual salary of $160,000.
While the agreement won’t have a huge impact on the city’s finances, city staffers argued that Fort Worth would still benefit from keeping the company downtown along with the added commitment to stay in downtown hotels.
Those hotel stays could have an indirect benefit on the Fort Worth convention center, which is relying in part on hotel occupancy taxes to fund the $700 million renovation.
It’s not clear whether the company would have left Fort Worth without the incentive.
“This project has been competitive,” a city spokesperson said in an email to the Star-Telegram, while noting the city uses its incentives to retain existing businesses so they can grow in Fort Worth.
Updating the office space will help Weir with its return to office strategy by creating an attractive space for workers, city economic development coordinator Josh Giles said at a Feb. 3 city council work session.
The project will also benefit the 44-year-old 777 Main building, which renovated its ground floor in 2021, but is still making updates to its office spaces, according to a presentation at the Feb. 3 work session.
The building currently has 17.3% of its office space vacant, according to the presentation. Weir’s expansion is expected to drop that vacancy rate to 16.9%.
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