From NBC 5 Dallas/Fort Worth:
A historic part of Fort Worth is now even closer to a major transformation.
On Thursday morning, city leaders broke ground on phase one of a multi-part plan to improve the beloved Stop Six neighborhood.
Cowan Place Senior Living, which will be located at East Rosedale Street and Stalcup Road, will feature 174-units designed for seniors 62 and up.
The development is part of a bigger plan to build an urban village on the west side of the Lake Arlington area, alongside numerous other projects planned across the neighborhood to bring massive commercial and residential development opportunities to residents. It's an effort city leaders hope will help with the high unemployment, crime, and poverty that has affected the neighborhood for decades.
Cowan Place will be part of a total of 1,000 mixed-income rental units with a community hub, an aquatics center, and other amenities planned for the urban village.
"You'll see a focus on walkable streets, we have parks and green space – a lot of emphases will be put on an aquatic center that we hope to get there after the bond election. So really great things that Stop Six just hasn't seen in 50 years coming back to that neighborhood, to make it sustainable for the next 50,” said Mary-Margaret Lemons, Fort Worth Housing Solutions president.
The progress has been a long time coming. In the last 10 years or so, there has been over $120 million of public investment in the Stop Six area.
Fort Worth’s housing authority and the city partnered back in 2013 to come up with a transformation plan for the community as part of the Stop Six Choice Neighborhood Initiative.
After years of planning, community input, and putting together a huge battle plan to apply for grants and put the project on paper, the city of Fort Worth won a $35 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in April 2020.
“When we really started this idea of applying for this huge grant we went over to City Hall and said, 'Will you guys be our partner?' And the resounding answer we got from everybody was, 'Yes.' Everybody says now is the time for Stop Six,” said Lemons.
Read NBC 5 Dallas/Fort Worth's article "Fort Worth Breaks Ground on First Phase of Stop Six Transformation," featuring Fort Worth Housing Solutions.