Contested north side hotel on edge of Fort Worth Stockyards clears next hurdle
A majority of Fort Worth zoning commissioners Wednesday recommended that city leaders rezone 2.53 acres of abandoned land in the north side for intensive commercial use, clearing the way for a new hotel.
Eight of the 10 commissioners supported the construction of a Hampton Inn and Suites on the remains of a demolished supermarket on the corner of Northwest 29th Street and North Main Street. The plan has elicited split reactions from nearby residents, who dispute whether the project will drive development or displacement in surrounding communities.
The proposed hotel creeps across 28th Street, the informal boundary separating the Stockyards from miles of working class neighborhoods. The four-story structure (six, including two floors of subterranean parking) would leer over a row of homes on Ellis Avenue.
“You might be thinking, ‘Hotels? Why so many hotels?’” the project’s lead engineering consultant, John Ainsworth, asked rhetorically to the commission during a presentation Wednesday afternoon. “We all know the Stockyards is growing; there’s a strong demand there.”
The hotel’s intended developer, Oldham Goodwin, plans to construct another Hilton hotel spinoff a few hundred feet east on another disregarded lot along Northwest 29th Street. Oldham Goodwin, based in Bryan, opened SpringHill Suites a few blocks down Main Street in 2019.
Ainsworth and the property’s current owner, Barney B. Holland Jr., showed in-person to lobby for the zoning change, boasting strong buy-in from nearby businesses.
The applicants brandished letters of support from the city’s Chamber of Commerce, the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, two Stockyards restaurants south of 28th street, and the Chick-fil-A bordering the property’s southern edge. (Holland’s company happens to be the Chick-fil-A’s landlord.)
Homeowners in the vicinity of the would-be hotel also vouched for its creation, Ainsworth said. The president of the Diamond Hill-Jarvis Neighborhood Association Council, a community east of Main Street cordoned off by knots of train tracks, pledged the group’s support in a Feb. 26 email shared with the commission.
“There’s only one neighbor on Ellis that we did not get a letter of support from,” Ainsworth added — a family whose head-of-house was apparently out of town.
Ellis Avenue residents expressed a mixture of relief and acceptance about the prospective hotel when discussing it with the Star-Telegram the week before the zoning vote. They’d prefer stores or restaurants, they admitted, but a hotel — something — is better than vacant, neglected space.
One Ellis Avenue resident said he wasn’t aware of his family members (who populate the block) writing letters of support for the hotel. The Star-Telegram was unable to secure copies of the letters from the commission or the developer’s team.
Those following online commentary on the case might’ve expected droves of opposition speakers, but only Gladys Guevara, the vice president of the North Side Neighborhood Association, phoned in. (Many angry posters complained that they couldn’t attend the hearing because it was held during work hours.)
“We already have the pressure from all of the development of the Stockyards,” Guevara said, her voice sounding from the chamber’s speakers. “As they encroach the residential areas, that’s going to negatively impact those who’ve chosen to live there.”
Hotels near homes brings costs — noise, bustle, unruly tourists — and few benefits for neighbors, she reasoned. Some worry a subsequent spike in property values may price longtime homeowners out of their houses.
The commission sympathized with Guevara’s concerns, but not enough to share her opposition to it.
“I am at times worried about what hotels do to neighborhoods; I don’t really find the value that a hotel will bring to a neighborhood unless they were involved with the community itself,” commissioner Willie Rankin remarked just before the vote. “We do see how close you are to the highway, we do see how close you are to the Stockyards, so there is another group that will benefit from this type of development.”
The City Council will have a final say on the matter at its meeting April 9.
