Fort Worth neighbors want these 100-year-old silos gone. Will this nonprofit make it happen?
Residents in Worth Heights have been asking the city to do something about the 100-year-old silos looming over their neighborhood for years.
A Fort Worth-based nonprofit that helps those experiencing homelessness in Tarrant County wants to be the group that saves the day, but whether it happens is up in the air.
Gary Wilkerson, founder of WhenWeLove, said his group plans to ask the city to donate the silos to them.
He said he has been working on the plan for around six months. Wilkerson didn’t start making city leaders and officials with Worth Height’s neighborhood association aware of the plan until he read the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s story on how residents thought the silos were an “eyesore” that needed to go.
Then he called the Star-Telegram.
Wilkerson told the paper Wednesday has a vision for the silos — he wants to take the property and make it into a Dream Center similar to ones in other states like California.
The campus would provide transitional housing, as well as technical training and education to people who are homeless or on the verge of homelessness. WhenWeLove’s biggest clientele, Wilkerson said, is single mothers.
And Wilkerson said the organization has gotten a quote to figure out how much it would cost to demolish the building — $1.4 million. Whether the whole building would come down is still up for debate. Wilkerson would like to preserve some of the building because of its history.
WhenWeLove recently acquired property on Alice Street near the silos to create more warehouse space for its operation.
Of course, all of Wilkerson’s plan hinges on whether can obtain the property. He has tried simply going through the property’s owner to see if he would just donate it to WhenWeLove. But Wilkerson, much like the city and the Star-Telegram, has not been successful in his efforts to reach the owner.
Wilkerson doesn’t want to make the neighborhood a place for homeless shelters, but he said adding transitional happening would be beneficial all around.
”Anything we do over there to make these buildings nicer and usable is going to help the neighborhood,” Wilkerson said.
Wilkerson may run into a roadblock.
Cody Whittenburg, an assistant director with the city’s code compliance office, wrote in an email Wednesday morning that the city can’t donate a property unless it’s publicly owned. The silos are private, he wrote.
Wilkerson said he set up a meeting with the neighborhood association July 13 to discuss his plans.
Joe Guerrero, the neighborhood association president, didn’t immediately return a phone call for comment Wednesday morning.
Residents in Worth Heights and city representatives have gone back and forth about how to address the long-vacant property for years.
Neighbors think it’s the city’s job to step in. Officials with the code compliance office say they can’t, citing how they can’t get in touch with the property’s owner and $1.2 million price tag to tear the silos down.
The city’s building standards commission took a vote in 2016 to step in to do something about the silos if the owner did not. Since then, the city has blocked openings on the bottom of the building and removed the lower level stairs.
