Fort Worth officials allocate American Rescue Plan funds to connect Downtown to Butler Place for economic recovery
Fort Worth, Texas – Amidst a meticulous allocation of the remaining American Rescue Plan Act funds, officials from Fort Worth are devising a strategy to conjoin downtown and Butler Place’s site, a previously uninhabited public housing estate.
Fort Worth City Council approved funds from the remaining $7.6 million of the city’s American Rescue Plan Act funds
On June 27, the City Council ratified an ordinance approving the disbursement of $100,000 from the remaining $7.6 million of the city’s American Rescue Plan Act funds. This allocation is specifically intended for the ideation, blueprinting, and realization of an avant-garde transit hub, envisaged to serve as a crucial link between downtown and the expansive 41-acre site of the now desolate Butler Place.
Innovative facets of the hub are projected to encompass a ride-share waiting area, bike parking, bike sharing, among other pioneering transit attributes. These features would not only create direct subterranean access to Central Station’s existing Amtrak and future high-speed rail but also seamlessly align with the local bus and rail network leading to the airport and other metropolitan vicinities. Additionally, the design incorporates a conduit to the nascent Texas A&M campus and the convention center, currently under expansion.
Fort Worth council memo describes the project as part of an “ongoing recovery effort to strengthen the economic health of the city.”
According to an internal council memorandum, the impending project is perceived as a pivotal part of a comprehensive endeavor aimed at bolstering the city’s economic resilience.
Downtown Fort Worth Inc.’s President, Andy Taft, expounded on the importance of this project, stressing that the envisioned connectivity is instrumental to the successful future refurbishment of Butler Place, set against the backdrop of an array of other urban ventures.
“What’s happening is that all of the partners recognize that the expansion of the convention center and the new hotel, the intermodal terminal that we already have there at Central Station, Texas A&M and Butler, are all coming together in a reasonably short amount of time. We want to make sure that the implications of all of those major projects are taken into consideration,” Taft said, as reported by Fort Worth Report.
In a concurrent development, the council sanctioned a hefty sum of $2.9 million on the same day for the innovative Texas A&M University Research and Innovation Hub.
Butler Place, inaugurated in 1940, held the distinction of being one of the 52 public works administration initiatives for affordable housing under former President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. However, the site’s geographic seclusion, hemmed in by I-30, I-35W, and US 287, combined with an excessive concentration of poverty, led to its desertion and the eventual relocation of its residents across the city in a bid to ameliorate living conditions.
The City of Fort Worth continues to invest and improve the city
The city of Fort Worth will get a big boost for city improvements with $20 million from the federal government. This money is meant for the big job of changing the East Lancaster corridor. This project is a part of a larger plan across the state, supported by the Biden Administration.
