The future of the Fort Worth Community Arts Center will come into sharper focus on Oct. 11.
Two to four developers will present their plans for reimagining the space at 6 p.m. at the arts center. Each finalist will have roughly one hour to make their case with about 20 minutes dedicated to their presentation, 30 minutes set aside for questions and 10 minutes carved out for AV setup and switching between presenters.
The nearly 70-year-old building, located in the Cultural District at 1300 Gendy St., is owned by the city, managed by Arts Fort Worth and is home to several other nonprofits. The center encompasses both indoor and outdoor gallery spaces, a handful of artist studios and two theaters.
In June, City Council accepted a task force’s recommendation to seek proposals for redeveloping the space in the face of about $30 million in repairs.
Soon, the city will share an online form and email address dedicated to feedback on the proposals. The public will have until 4 p.m. Oct. 16 to send their comments and preferences to the city.
Residents will also be able to submit their feedback in person at the Oct. 11 meeting.
From there, developers will present their revised plans to the same five-person panel that sifted through the original pool of applicants. That body will then select a developer.
“We anticipate that city staff will be able to brief the City Council about a proposed development agreement with the preferred developer as early as January 2024,” Assistant City Manager Fernando Costa wrote to the Report.
Council will vote on the proposed agreement. In the event that the city and the chosen developer aren’t able to execute an agreement, the city may pursue other options, such as reconsidering other finalists.
“Our process is tightly structured in many ways,” Costa said, “but the outcome is nevertheless impossible to predict.”
Marcheta Fornoff covers the arts for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at marcheta.fornoff@fortworthreport.org or on Twitter. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.