Chisholm Trail Parkway 5 years later - How the toll road sparked Fort Worth growth
When Chisholm Trail Parkway opened more than five years ago, the toll road created a veritable blank canvas for developers to build homes, shops, restaurants and other destinations in a stretch of Fort Worth that was previously inaccessible.
Well, that proverbial canvas now has more than a few brush strokes on it.
Homes are being built quickly, especially in the master-planned Chisholm Trail Ranch development near McPherson Boulevard. Big box retailers are under construction in that area, too, and scheduled to open next year.
“Chisholm Trail Parkway opened up a new quadrant of the community, and, with that, you’ve been seeing the commercial and residential development,” said Chris Strayer, senior vice president of business attraction, retention and expansion at the Fort Worth Chamber.
Traffic has steadily risen on Chisholm Trail Parkway since it opened May 11, 2014. About 110,000 toll transactions are recorded each day on the road, up from 66,600 transactions per day in 2015, the road’s first full year of activity. (Drivers may pay more than one toll transaction per trip, depending upon how many electronic toll collection gantries they drive under during each trip.)
About two miles south of McPherson Boulevard, Tarleton State University has opened the initial phase of a Fort Worth campus that eventually could have more than 9,000 students — nearly the size of the school’s flagship campus in Stephenville.
Closer to downtown Fort Worth, the outdoorsy, high-end retail center known as the Shops at Clearfork has been an immediate success since it opened in 2017 near the intersection of the toll road and Edwards Ranch Road. The shopping area features high-end brand stores such as Louis Vuitton and Tiffany & Co.
Booming in Cleburne
In Johnson County, development also is picking up on the southern end of the toll road. At the southeast corner of Chisholm Trail Parkway and U.S. 67, a mixed-use development known as Cleburne Station features a new minor league baseball park and pad sites for numerous restaurants and retails stores.
And, industrial and warehousing businesses are eyeing the southwestern corner of Tarrant County and northern edge of Johnson County, too.
Walmart recently opened a large distribution center along Sparks Drive in Cleburne, on the southern end of the toll road.
Also, the Mexico-based pasta company La Moderna last year opened a $50 million pasta manufacturing facility on Sparks Drive. The company, which uses highly automated machinery to make the noodles, employs about 100 people and says the ease of access on Chisholm Trail Parkway was a key factor in the decision to move to North Texas.
Also in Cleburne, about 500 new homes are under construction in various developments, and a new high school is being built as part of a $130 million voter-approved bond package.
Local government entities are seeing a consistent, year-to-year increase in tax revenues. Johnson County Judge Roger Harmon credits steady residential and commercial growth from Chisholm Trail Parkway as the main factor.
“When we got our certified (tax) rolls they were up $480 million in new value. That’s new growth, and that really helps our budgets,” Harmon said in an interview.
Time to expand the road?
Chisholm Trail Parkway was built in a partnership of several local government agencies, led by the North Texas Tollway Authority. Many other projects built by NTTA have sprouted massive economic development — including the extension of Dallas North Tollway north of Interstate 635 into Collin County, and the construction of Sam Rayburn Tollway in Denton and Collin counties.
In economic terms, The Dallas-Fort Worth region has a gross regional product — the value of all goods and services produced in North Texas — of $487.7 billion. And, of that, $38.5 billion can be attributed to the mobility benefits provided by the authority’s system of toll roads.
“This is not a new phenomenon. When there’s good, reliable transportation infrastructure, it attracts development,” said Horatio Porter, NTTA chief financial officer. “The old addage is true: If you build it, they truly will come.”
The impact of the toll road also surfaces in job data. For example, NTTA tracks development within five miles of all of its roads — a metric known internally as the “NTTA influence area.” There are now 2.6 million jobs within that area, up from 1.5 million jobs a decade ago.
Those figures represent more than half of all jobs in the Metroplex.
Chisholm Trail Parkway is not only living up to its expectations as a mobility and economic development tool. It may be a road in need of expansion, officials said.
The southern portion of the toll road in Johnson County is only one lane in each direction, with passing lanes every few miles. But NTTA officials said they are ready to begin the planning process for adding at least one lane in each direction in the next five years.
“In anticipation of future growth, we’re beginning to do some planning and design work for the southern section of Chisholm Trail Parkway,” said Michael Rey, NTTA spokesman. “We want to make sure we don’t get behind the congestion curve.”
