For the next couple of weeks I am going to report on some of my thoughts on the Visioneering trip to Oklahoma City and Fort Worth.  I will concentrate on Fort Worth, Texas this week.  I used to travel the Dallas/Fort Worth metro are often while working at Target.  While I spent most of my time in the Plano/Richardson area, I wandered to Fort Worth occasionally and truthfully was not impressed with the downtown area.  But that was some years ago and I was pleasantly surprised at what I experienced in the Fort Worth area on my recent trip.

Fort Worth has changed dramatically in the last several years.  Its leaders are working hard to revive its down core area and complete the Trinity River project to add even more amenities and housing to an area that had become less than desirable for investment and new development.  And Fort Worth continues to attract some of the country’s best-known companies and most notable investors, while retaining dozens of equally preeminent corporations. 

Over the past decade, downtown Fort Worth has become a different kind of hotspot – many of their locals now call it home.  Living in downtown has been enhanced and encouraged and is adding greatly to the vibrancy of the downtown area.  Construction and redevelopment are underway in all sectors, and apartments and condominiums are being leased and purchased in record numbers.  While suburban and outlying areas are still growing and thriving, so is the core downtown Fort Worth area.  One does not have to negatively affect the other with the right strategic plan and implementation scenario.

Fort Worth has been described as a great big small town, a thriving metropolis crossed with a contented rural community.  Wichita and Sedgwick County has many similarities in my mind.  It appears that their new reputation holds up because of its cultural offerings, neighborhood appeal and overall quality of life.  Over 22,000 new citizens decided to call Fort Worth home in 2006 and made them one of the fastest growing cities in the United States.  In 2007 Fort Worth was named the Best City for Relocating Families.  Apparently much of their hard work is paying off.

Central to much of Fort Worth’s livability is the warm, welcoming downtown district, which offers eclectic entertainment in a clean, safe environment.  For visitors to the Fort Worth area, there is no lack of new renovations, improved walkways and infrastructure, and other modern amenities as developers are continually investing to improve the downtown core.  In some cases it was market driven and in some case there was public help to move the needed projects along.

In the State of Texas, local governments can publicly finance structural improvements and infrastructure enhancements with “reinvestment zones.”  The tax increment comprises the difference between the appraised value of reinvestment zone at the time it is established and the number of years it remains in existence.  Current Fort Worth TIF zones include the Downtown, the Speedway, Riverfront, Southside/ Medical district, North Tarrant Parkway, Lancaster, the Trinity River Vision, Lone Star, Southwest Parkway and East Berry Renaissance.  That is a lot of TIFs in that metro area.

Certainly, the use of Tax Increment Finance districts and their relationship to the phenomenal change and growth and resurgence of Fort Worth makes for a remarkable discussion about the use of TIFs to accomplish revitalization projects for the community.  Fort Worth has used them often and to their advantage.  That certainly adds another layer to the ongoing debate we are having in our community about the need and usage of TIF districts.  Both ends of the argument have compelling reasons to support their conclusions.  

Certainly, you can be conflicted on this volatile issue when you pit the systematic and restricted  use of public money for revitalization type developments against the progressive and strategic investment model that Fort Worth has used.  This conversation is being conducted in city after city that I have visited and read about.  And Wichita and Sedgwick County is no different.  As we continue to push and pull over what to do with the Wichita core area and how much public money will be invested in infrastructure and how big the area will be and what the actual price tag might be and whether there is a middle ground that insures progress but does not fly in the face of the tolerance of the taxpayer, the debate will go on.  And that is healthy.

Fort Worth has found a way to get it done.  They are ambitious but the results are there at least from an outsider looking in.  I am sure the real process the public and community leaders went through to move their community along is a lot like making sausage … you love the end product, but you really don’t want to see it being made.