This affordable housing complex near West 7th will be torn down and rebuilt
The Fort Worth City Council ushered forward plans Tuesday, Nov. 19, to tear down and rebuild hundreds of subsidized apartment units near the West 7th entertainment district.
Dallas-based developer Ojala Partners and Fort Worth Housing Solutions, the city’s public housing authority, have lobbied for months for an overhaul of The Springs, 3100 Hamilton Ave. They pitch the project as the much-needed facelift of a wilting property that, upon completion, would enliven a key part of the city’s urban core.
The leaders of some surrounding neighborhood associations have bristled at the replacement’s proposed density and the traffic they fear it would bring, despite the assurances of city planners that taller and more compact apartments are well-suited for the area.
Residents of The Springs, who hadn’t been formally notified of the plan before the council meeting, were also wary — concerned less with potential changes in building height and structure than with their own dislocation from a community many call home.
“I think in the end, you’ll be proud of what’s developed here, and we’ll still protect neighborhoods,” Mayor Mattie Parker said shortly before the unanimous vote, addressing skeptics. “In this situation, you’ve got the right council representation that has been very diligent and thoughtful, you got great representation by city staff, and you’ve got a developer that will walk the walk.”
The council agreed to change the 15-acre property’s zoning designation from medium density multifamily to high-intensity mixed-use. Council member Elizabeth Beck, whose district encompasses the property, added two stipulations: capping the new complex’s height at five stories and restricting ground-level commercial space to offices — ostensibly a less traffic-generating use.
Dating to the early 1960s, The Springs consists of 430 units spread across two nearly adjacent parcels. The complex rents only to tenants making at or below 60% of the city’s median income; the average renter in The Springs, according to Ojala, pays $899 each month.
Fort Worth Housing Solutions and Ojala plan to more than double the existing unit count. Just over half will be subsidized, reserved for renters making at or below 80% of the area median income. The agency has promised that all residents will have the opportunity to return to the renovated development upon its completion, tentatively set for sometime in the 2030s.
Some critics of the revamp note the raised ceiling will, in turn, increase the rents of subsidized units, likely pricing out many residents hoping to return.
“There’s a shortage of affordable housing options in the area, so this would make that much more challenging for the residents,” said Peter Mosley, a resident of The Springs who circulated flyers about the project to his neighbors after reading about the dispute in the Star-Telegram in late October. “Fundamentally, I think one of the unfortunate things is that a lot of the residents haven’t really been given a voice.”
Mary-Margaret Lemons, the president of Fort Worth Housing Solutions, attempted to allay those concerns.
“We will ask for deeper affordability,” she told council members. “We don’t know what that looks like because we don’t have the final costs of the project.”
Lemons also reassured city leaders that her agency has exhaustive and humane protocols in place to shepherd residents through relocation, a process, she has said in the past, the group has undertaken with few hitches; several council members backed her group’s track record.
By the time construction is expected to begin in 2026, Lemons added, the agency will have ample units available at comparable rent levels to house transfers from The Springs. Daniel Smith, a managing director at Ojala, said he and his partners would begin notifying residents about the rebuild now that they’d secured the zoning they needed.
Several sympathetic property owners running businesses on lots around the site took to the dais to back the redevelopment. All described The Springs as a blight that compromised the safety of the neighborhood and the allure of their enterprises.
“I currently will not walk to my car alone in the evenings when I’m in the office due to feeling unsafe,” said Judy Schmeltekof, whose family runs a financial services firm directly bordering the southern edge of The Springs. “The added lighting and parking control that the new facility is planning will alleviate some of these safety concerns.”
Residents of The Springs questioned the menacing characterization of their complex.
“I’ve lived there for eight years; it’s a wonderful place,” said Chris Turner, who lives on the property’s northern half. “I don’t have any riffraff, drug use, prostitution, any of that. I haven’t seen that; maybe I’m blind.”
Mosley agreed.
“Part of the argument for redevelopment seems to be attacking the residents and wanting them out of the area,” he said.
Surrounding homeowners focused their criticisms more on the number of future residents than the purported difficulties with current ones.
“We don’t want traffic cutting through Linwood and destroying it,” said Eva Bonilla, president of the Linwood Neighborhood Association, to The Springs’ east.
City planners, summoned by council members to allay resident worries, said they’d scrutinize the infrastructural impacts of the redesign after the case cleared zoning.
“I think what you’re proposing is a huge improvement,” said council member Macy Hill, whose district borders the complex. “As long as you’re respectful of the neighborhoods’ requests, and we keep it no higher than five stories, this is a huge improvement to the neighborhood.”
This story was originally published November 19, 2024 at 1:18 PM.
