City council votes to re-zone portion of historic Stockyards District
FORT WORTH, Texas (CBSDFW.COM) — It's a little bit of country in the middle of a city; Fort Worth's historic Stockyards District attracts visitors from all over.
"We're just taking it all in right now and enjoying what we're seeing," said Erin Murray, who's visiting from Connecticut.
The stores are seeing more customers buy even more gifts that usual this year.
"It has generally increased year over year," said Marketing Manager for Texas Hot Stuff Robert Boling.
But with popularity comes congestion.
"The traffic is already crazy down here as it is with all the tourists and everybody having fun," said Shelley Smith, who is from Fort Worth.
To help with that, this week, the city council voted to rezone a portion of the district and allow for the development of new multifamily residence buildings.
"I think it's a better balance than where we were," said Fort Worth City Councilman Carlos Flores.
Flores represents the area and said a lot has changed since when the city created a master plan for this area in 2015 when the goal was to bring more people down to the area.
"Since that time, our projections have been vastly exceeded," added Flores. "We started out with about 2 million visiting and it was waning... Now we're north of 8 million and climbing."
What old is new again and rethinking how the Stockyards continue to develop will require a careful approach.
"We want the Stockyards to continue to function smoothly and be able to have people come in and come out," said Flores.
Meanwhile, the city is also looking at a mobility study to determine the best ways for cars and people to move around the district. The results should be revealed in the coming months.