Panther Island zoning overhaul and a 12-story apartment deal go before the council Tuesday

The rules for building on Panther Island, the long-planned waterfront district just north of downtown, would be rewritten from the ground up under zoning items on the Fort Worth City Council's agenda for its 6 p.m. meeting Tuesday, Oct. 13, at City Hall, 100 Fort Worth Trail. A development agreement for a 290-unit residential project in the district is on the same agenda.

Two zones instead of many

City staff are proposing a text amendment, case ZC-26-121, that would collapse the district's existing subdistricts, which the staff report counts as nine, into two: PI-Core and PI-Edge. Neighborhood zones, the North Main area, the Urban Lakes zones, a Tarrant County College zone, the LaGrave Field zone and Canal C Phase 1 would all be folded in.

Building heights would change too. Under the current code, limits vary by subdistrict from 36 feet to 288 feet. The rewrite would allow up to 15 stories in PI-Edge and up to 24 stories in PI-Core.

The update also adds new standards for building design, waterfront activation, open space, tree canopy, parking, signs and fencing, and spells out which reviews staff can approve and which go to the Urban Design Commission.

A companion case, ZC-26-117, would move about 449 acres bounded by the Trinity River, the Clear Fork, Arthur and Kansas streets and the Fort Worth & Western Railroad into the new zones. Council member Carlos Flores requested that rezoning, according to the staff report, and property owners met with the city about it on June 3. The Zoning Commission recommended both cases 9-0.

The changes are meant to carry out Panther Island Vision 2.0, a plan the city and regional partners finished in 2024. The district started as Trinity Uptown in 2006, took the Panther Island name in 2014 and got its current form-based code in 2016.

The Seco project

On the consent agenda is a development agreement with Panther Island Partners, an affiliate of Seco Enterprises, for a mixed-use project between North Main Street, North Commerce Street and Northeast Fourth Street. The plan calls for a building of at least 12 stories with 290 apartments and 9,000 square feet of retail.

The agreement lists a Canal C bridge at North Commerce Street and design of a North Main Street bridge among the items needing council approval. It would credit the developer up to $521,900 in park fees for building a canal-side paseo and waive building permit fees of up to $76,620, plus street use and temporary encroachment permit fees.

The finance director says the deal would have no material effect on city funds. The council approved separate incentives for the project in June: up to $2 million in waived transportation impact fees and up to $10 million in grants over 10 years.

Sewer charges

Three more consent items would set sewer capacity charges for new Panther Island lines, ranging from about $198,600 to $468,900 per million gallons per day of capacity, to repay the Water Department as development connects.

Sources

docspublished.io

fortworthtexas.gov