Panther Island’s path forward: Updated vision, flood control funding advance huge opportunity in Fort Worth – Dallas Business Journal

Fort Price officers describe Panther Island as a once-in-a-lifetime alternative: greater than 500 acres of developable land, each publicly and privately owned, only a stone’s throw from downtown.

However uncertainty across the timeline for essential flood management measures and infrastructure enhancements has largely prevented builders from making stable plans.

That is beginning to change.

With new funding for flood management and a 234-page report stuffed with suggestions of their palms, Fort Price leaders imagine they’ve cleared a number of the longtime hurdles which have given builders pause.

Turning the Panther Island alternative into actuality will nonetheless require appreciable work. However filth might flip prior to some may assume. Simply ask Sarah LanCarte, founding father of actual property agency LanCarte Industrial and co-founding parter at Tillar Companions.

LanCarte, who’s completed a number of offers on Panther Island, sees momentum constructing. Final yr, she represented a Houston-based agency that offered 25 acres to Seco Ventures in an space generally known as Upstream at Panther Island. And Fort Price-based Tillar Companions plans to convey a $120 million multi-use challenge to about 12 acres at 529 N. Throckmorton St., with workplace area, retail and parking.

“Panther Island is tremendous difficult — the entire utility infrastructure, the [U.S. Army] Corps of Engineers, I imply, each single element,” LanCarte mentioned. “I feel individuals are actually rallying collectively to attempt to determine it out for town. However I do assume you may begin seeing non-public improvement within the subsequent 18 months.”

Who owns Panther Island?

Public entities together with the Tarrant Regional Water District and Tarrant County School District personal 383 acres on Panther Island, in line with a March report by HR&A. Non-public landowners management 74 acres.

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DBJ; Maps4News

Panther Island has acquired $443 million in federal funding since 2022 to help flood management alongside the Trinity River as a part of the Central Metropolis Flood Management Challenge. The general price estimate for the challenge surpasses $1 billion.

Builders have lengthy been thinking about Panther Island, which was house to heavy trade together with an influence plant. However uncertainty round timing and infrastructure made it exhausting for personal firms to decide to a challenge, mentioned Robert Sturns, Fort Price’s financial improvement director.

Federal help for flood management “was actually, I feel, what helped us get to kick off this subsequent part to start to maneuver some improvement exercise ahead,” he mentioned.

Now, plans for improvement are beginning to take form. Consulting agency HR&A Advisors was employed to gather and condense data from Fort Price stakeholders and create suggestions for the realm’s future improvement. The agency launched a 234-page last report in March, following up on preliminary findings launched final yr.

The report offers an early imaginative and prescient of what improvement might appear like on the island, and town is already adopting a few of its suggestions.

The Tarrant County Water District officers voted in June to demolish an outdated baseball discipline on the island the place icons akin to Babe Ruth as soon as performed, as really helpful within the marketing consultant’s report. Sources informed WFAA not less than one group is planning a mixed-use improvement anchored by a brand new ballpark.

“This group is open to what the alternatives are,” water board member Paxton Motheral informed WFAA. “This may not shut the door on alternative for sports activities right here.”

The place improvement might begin

Whereas present levees and infrastructure imply some elements of Panther Island can’t be developed till the flood management challenge is accomplished, HR&A recognized some areas that might be prepared sooner.

The south island can’t be developed till the Central Metropolis Challenge is accomplished and levees are eliminated to forestall flooding and elevation points, and elements of the north island may have restricted improvement as a result of building of a brand new wastewater principal, the report states. Nevertheless, elements of the north island’s inside could be developed earlier than levees are eliminated. HR&A broke up the island into zones to map out the place improvement can begin.

The primary zone is alongside North Important Road, which the report notes will mark the primary corners of improvement at Important Road and Fourth Road to create “a high-impact, low funding choice for the primary part of improvement on the island.”

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Lake Flato

Fort Price officers are adopting suggestions within the report back to make improvement in that space a actuality. The town council and zoning fee permitted an modification that may elevate the utmost constructing top to twenty tales and take away a rule that prohibits flooring plates larger than 16,000 sq. toes above 96 toes in top for towers alongside roughly eight blocks of North Important Road. The event on the majority of the island is restricted to 5 tales.

Dana Burghdoff, Fort Price assistant metropolis supervisor, mentioned the change was proposed partly as a result of that space falls within the early improvement zone. The town additionally needs to focus density alongside North Important Road, flagged as a “important thoroughfare” within the report, with the intention to help larger frequency transit, she mentioned.

The final improvement to ship within the space was the Encore flats in 2018. The 300-unit group has a canal system operating by the center.

However Burghdoff mentioned there are plans for extra, which she is happy to see be introduced “within the subsequent couple of months.”

In that zone, which encompasses about 12 acres, Tarrant Water District and Tarrant County School personal 4 acres, in line with the report. Austin-based Seco, Encore Panther Island and different non-public house owners personal 8 acres.

Upcoming adjustments

Extra adjustments to the form-based code governing land use on Panther Island are incoming, Burghdoff mentioned. A number of areas are at the moment required to be two-thirds residential improvement. Whereas which may make sense in some areas, she mentioned town may take into account different makes use of akin to leisure, workplace and lodge. She mentioned town will search a zoning marketing consultant to assist with that course of.

From an financial improvement standpoint, Sturns mentioned there are areas the place industrial makes extra sense than residential. His division is speaking to completely different firms and shoppers searching for alternatives and making an attempt to supply areas the place they assume that sort of improvement can happen. He describes the hassle as a collaboration between town, land house owners, the Fort Price Chamber of Commerce and Fort Price Financial Improvement Partnership.

“We have actually spent a while type of driving down on, how will we entice a few of these particular makes use of?” he mentioned. “And going out and type of actively advertising the location, in coordination with the property house owners.” 

Sturns referred to as Panther Island a singular alternative and mentioned public engagement is a crucial issue so the transformation could be helpful for generations to return.

“We positively need to make it possible for the residents which have raised households in that neighborhood and grown up in these areas have a possibility as they see a few of this improvement occur — that they are in a position to reap the benefits of it and benefit from the fruits of all of the labor that we’re making an attempt to convey ahead with it,” he mentioned.

Bowie Holland — who’s on town’s improvement advisory committee, chairs the Fort Price Actual Property Council’s governmental affairs committee and is listed as a key island stakeholder within the report — feels town has embraced the HR&A suggestions. He expects there might be a governance construction to assist information the imaginative and prescient for Panther Island ahead. He factors to Close to South Aspect Inc. and the lately created Fort Price Stockyards Inc. for instance.

“These might be regulatory entities that may type of shield the imaginative and prescient of what a year-plus price of stakeholder engagement introduced collectively, but additionally let the market have loads of say in what will get constructed there,” Holland mentioned. “The market has the final word vote on what comes.”