It’s said that Fort Worth’s most exciting developments have occurred in its downtown area. Here you’ll find 19 blocks full of office buildings, restaurants, retail offerings, and entertainment venues. RadioShack and Pier1 Imports have located their corporate headquarters -- worth a combined $290 million in capital investment -- along the Trinity River. The Tower, an ambitious adaptive reuse project, transformed a tornado-damaged, 37-story skyscraper into one of the first mixed-use high-rise developments in Texas.

A combination of public improvement districts, tax increment finance districts, tax abatements, and private investment keep the downtown momentum going. And a $273.5 million Capital Improvement Program Bond package, approved by voters in February of 2004, is improving street and storm sewers, parks and community services, libraries, fire services, telecommunications, and public health services.

Fort Worth strongly supports housing development in its urban core as a way to promote a sustainable community. There are many practical and intrinsic advantages of attracting a critical mass of people back to downtown. Urban planners and strategists have known for years that resident populations become engines that drive a diversified economy including retail and neighborhood support. People who live in the central city do not tend to congest roadways during peak hours. Plus, downtown residents tend to open and grow businesses in the same area.