Study looks to reconnect, redevelop Fort Worth’s Butler Place

April 28,2024

See full Fort Worth Report article by Sandra Sadek here.

Restricted on all three sides by a six-lane highway, Butler Place’s location has long confined the urban island to isolation. A new study is underway to better access the site and unlock its future potential.

The Access Butler Place Plan, spearheaded by the city’s Transportation and Public Works Department alongside Fort Worth Housing Solutions, which owns the site, will explore ways to reconnect the former African American public housing site to the rest of downtown.

The first public open house is from 4:30-7:30 p.m. May 9 at Fort Worth Central Station, 1001 Jones St.

Kelly Porter, assistant director of Fort Worth’s Transportation and Public Works, said any future redevelopment of the site will require good accessibility, which is a crucial first step.

Getting feedback on how people view access and what they see as barriers and solutions going forward is key to creating what he calls “connectivity in the core of the city.”

Reconnecting a formerly segregated site

The 42 acres are among the last remaining land available for redevelopment in the downtown area. But for years, the property was carved out of the rest of Fort Worth’s growing and booming downtown by several highways, Interstate 35W, Interstate 30 and U.S. Highway 287.

Opened in 1940 as one of 52 Public Works Administration projects for low-income housing as part of the New Deal, Butler Place predominantly served an African American population. Next to it is the once racially segregated and historic I.M. Terrell High School, the city’s first Black school, opened in 1882.

The school is now the I.M. Terrell Academy for STEM and Visual Performing Arts, part of the Fort Worth ISD Schools of Choice program.

“Being so close to (I.M. Terrell), named after the first black principal in Fort Worth ISD, there's great symbolism there,” said Ernie Moran, a Fort Worth ISD teacher and parent of a student at the high school. “There's a chance to do something really great with that history and that symbolism. I pray that the city doesn't drop the ball.”

Exterior view of Butler Place, a government housing project built in the 1940s for African American residents in the Chambers Hill district of Fort Worth. A sign in the front yard reads, “Open for Inspection.” (Courtesy photo | UTA Libraries Digital Gallery)

The final tenants moved out of Butler Place in 2020 and were relocated to apartment homes in what the housing authority described as high-opportunity neighborhoods across the city.

Butler Place is a vestige of a time when housing authorities used to concentrate poverty in certain areas of a city. Fort Worth Housing Solutions President Mary-Margaret Lemons said the city has moved forward from this approach and is now focused on creating vibrant mixed-income communities spread out across the city.

After the last tenants moved out in 2020, all doors and windows were boarded up. (Sandra Sadek | Fort Worth Report)

The city held a series of workshops in September 2019 and meetings with the Butler Advisory Committee continued into 2022. While nothing has been finalized in terms of what Butler Place will eventually become, creating something that respects the history of the site while creating economic development is key, Lemons said.

“We really stand on the shoulders of giants that came before us with huge visions for Fort Worth to deconcentrate poverty,” Lemons said. “We no longer believe that warehousing poor people in one part of the city is the right way to do affordable housing, and Fort Worth has been super progressive in embracing that and seeing the future.”

The upcoming study is a continuation of previous work and research done about Butler Place, Porter said. Federal funding for the study was secured through the North Central Texas Council of Governments and supplemented by local dollars.

“There’s no time like the present to go ahead and start figuring out what we need to do,” Porter said.

As part of the study, the city and its partners will solicit feedback on how to improve the surrounding infrastructure, encourage diverse development, and bring new recreational opportunities.

The time is also right to address the accessibility issues of Butler Place at a moment when there is plenty of federal funding available for transportation projects. However, it is too early to determine what kind of funding the future Butler Place could qualify for.

That’s why getting this study done is important, Porter said.

“You have to let people know what they’re investing in,” he said.

In total, the city plans on hosting three to four rounds of open houses, including the upcoming May 9 meeting. There will also be surveys on the project website for residents to share feedback.

“I would hope that somebody whose heart is in the right place, first and foremost, is in the room when those decisions are made and it's not just people who are looking at dollar signs and dollar figures,” Moran said.

Preserving Fort Worth’s history

While the future of Butler Place is not yet set in stone, housing officials say this is certain: The historical significance of the site will be preserved.

Some historical structures will be preserved and incorporated into the redevelopment of Butler Place, said Mary-Margaret Lemons, president of Fort Worth Housing Solutions. (Sandra Sadek | Fort Worth Report)

Fort Worth Housing Solutions is working on obtaining a local historical designation for the old agency’s administration building, which was Carver-Hamilton Elementary School. About 17 of the 42 acres were put on the National Register of Historic Places in the early 2000s.

Since receiving that designation, the housing authority, and the city have been working with the state to outline what parts of the property will be maintained in its originality. The agreement includes maintaining two of the residential buildings, some of the historic resources on-site as well as some of the bricks.

There will also be signage highlighting Butler Place’s history and an amphitheater.

Lemons told the Fort Worth Report the agency is working with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to phase out the remaining Butler Place units still in HUD’s system and so is overseen by the federal agency.

Applications for that process were just approved, she said, and the last remaining housing assistance tied to the property will be transferred to other parts of the city. That process could take anywhere from 18 months to two years.

“This is the last large parcel that’s adjacent to downtown. We’re being very methodical in the steps that we’re taking to ensure that we’re doing the right thing, not only for the housing authority but for the communities that really are of the utmost importance to us,” Lemons said.

The rebirth of Butler Place has been in the works for almost a decade as officials work to give this once-segregated and isolated urban island a second chance at life. As the last large remaining parcel of land adjacent to downtown, all eyes are on the property and what it could bring to Fort Worth.

“We want to make sure that whatever it becomes is something that is a catalyst for the city and for the community, and possibly a long-term income stream for the housing authority,” Lemons said. “One of our goals is to make sure that it’s not just a one-time shot in the arm of capital, but something that’s reoccurring and sustainable for the housing authority to be able to operate well into the future.”

Sandra Sadek is a Report for America corps member, covering growth for the Fort Worth Report. You can contact her at sandra.sadek@fortworthreport.org or @ssadek19.

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This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Locations Mentioned: Fort Worth Central Station, I.M. Terrell Academy for STEM and Visual Performing Arts