3 min read May 2023 — Mattie Parker, mayor of the City of Fort Worth, is focused on improving the city as a whole. With specific projects regarding economic development, transportation, job growth and improving quality of life for residents, Parker has a wide variety of initiatives in progress. She discussed all this and more in an interview with Invest:.
What have been your recent achievements as mayor?
In terms of economic development, we’ve gone against the grain by forming our own Economic Development Corporation with Robert Allen, who used to run the Texas Economic Development Corp. (TxEDC) in Austin. That’s just a reinvestment and what we know we’ve needed to do for a long time. It’s a way to double down on our efforts on economic development in the community. We have some target industries that we’ve been really successful in standing up and refocusing on when it comes to attracting top talent and businesses to North Texas. We are opening our first Fort Worth Entrepreneurship Center on the southside of Fort Worth as a continuation of our work with TechStars Physical Health Accelerator cohort we had last year. That’s a public-private partnership between John Goff, the City of Fort Worth and Tarrant County. We also announced the Texas A&M campus Downtown, which is quite exciting. Texas A&M Fort Worth will break ground this summer.
Economic development, specifically in North Texas, really fits in that target industry of mobility and what the future looks like across the United States. We think we’re a hub for that moving forward. We also had a big announcement that Bell Textron was selected by the U.S. Army to develop the next generation of future long-range assault aircraft, the V-280 Valor, which is really a replacement for the Black Hawk. That’s a huge $70 billion contract for one of our legacy companies here in Fort Worth.
What transit projects are in the works?
It’s important to have a choice system because Texans love their cars and Fort Worth is a city that sprawls over 350 square miles. How do we create a transit system that works for Texans in a large growing region like DFW? You have multiple different transit agencies between DCTA DART and Trinity Metro. A notable project that is worth mentioning is our TexRail project that takes you from Downtown Fort Worth to DFW Airport. We’ve finally seen ridership start to come back up above COVID numbers, which is quite exciting. We’re extending that line from Downtown Fort Worth into the Medical District, which is one of the largest employment hubs in our city.
There’s also a project that’s coming to fruition between Alliance Texas and Hillwood to get more workforce from south and east Fort Worth up I-35 in those managed lanes with guaranteed delivery time in a nice coach bus that will be operated by Trinity Metro. They’ve already ordered the vehicles, though they are backordered due to supply chain issues.
So what does transit look like across Texas? Candidly, it’s a hard topic because it’s not really popular among statewide elected officials or Austin or with TxDOT. Cities like ours that are fiscally responsible have trouble funding large transit opportunities. The City of Austin did a large bond just before COVID that passed but even it had arrows flying at it from the legislature this last session. It’s something that the state of Texas is really grappling with: what does public transportation look like in our large urban corridors moving forward? I definitely recognize the need for transit. But at the same time, we can’t wait to build out our major highways, interstates and roadways along Fort Worth for traditional modes of transportation.
Can you provide an update on the Panther Island project?
We received $403 million in 2021 from the federal government through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and an additional $20 million in 2023. Those funds are close to what we need for the rest of the project. There’s still a gap of funding to finish the channels and create the lake and the locks and dams, but it’s a big win for the community to receive that money. It also allows us to start thinking about private development along the levee that doesn’t require the levee to come down. There are a few major landowners and developers that are working on their own master plans that will coincide with the larger project. We’ve also contracted with joint jurisdictions. We could have as much as 10,000 additional units of housing on the island, hundreds of thousands of square feet of class-A office space, green space and river activation, essentially doubling the size of Downtown Fort Worth, which no other city in the country can really say. We’re trying to be methodical, honor the market and work on the flood control piece of it, which is critically important. We also continue to advocate in Washington, D.C., for the additional amount of money that we need.
What is your top priority for improving Fort Worth?
Quality of life is the predominant goal for our city in every department and for all of the investments that we’re making. Families want to live someplace that has a high quality of life. That’s first and foremost, and there are a few different priorities that lend themselves to that focus on a high quality of life for our residents in every zip code. The first is a clean and safe city. No. 2 is the cooperation with Parks and Recreation for our open space initiative. We started with a smaller program in partnership with Trust for Public Land and then we did a bond election in 2022. Of the $560 million, $15 million was dedicated to an open space fund to help us purchase and preserve property.
A great tree preservation ordinance, a high level of investment in mobility projects across the region to get people to and from high-quality jobs, education, high-quality schools — all of these things really lend themselves to improving the quality of life we have here. As a city, we have to ask ourselves, what can we control? But also how do we contribute to some of these other issues that are happening in Fort Worth, to help get them where they need to be. There are a variety of different projects that are focused on that.
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