The future of the Fort Worth Community Arts Center is on hold again after both development teams competing for the contract asked the city for more time to work on their bids.
The developers now have until April to submit their “best and final proposal.” The city hopes to be able to work on a predevelopment agreement that they can present to Council no later than June, Assistant City Manager Fernando Costa said.
Both companies had previously submitted revised bids following a presentation to the public on Oct. 11.
Garfield Public/Private LLC revised their proposal two weeks later on Oct. 25. Goldenrod Companies revised their bid on Nov. 1.
“We hope, of course, that one or both of the proposals will meet all of our needs. At this stage, however, neither one is complete in the sense that it addresses all of our expectations,” Costa said.
To varying degrees, neither plan fully addressed the selection committee’s questions, Costa said. One developer needs to provide more information on potential uses and tenants; both developers need to give additional information about their business plans.
“It’s important that any proposals for reuse of 1300 Gendy reflect the interests of our stakeholders,” he continued. “Naturally, any proposal should also be economically feasible, and sometimes those two objectives may conflict. But that’s part of the challenge that we’re facing.”
Both firms were encouraged to reach out to current tenants, other arts organizations, task force members and neighbors in the Cultural District, Costa said.
The Fort Worth Community Arts Center is home to just under a dozen tenants. Arts Fort Worth is the building’s anchor tenant and the other nonprofits sublease their spaces.
The Report reached out to each of the current tenants. Of the four that responded, all reported that they have not heard directly from either developer.
“Unfortunately, Garfield doesn’t have any new news to share that wasn’t already presented in their public presentation on Oct. 11 and their interview with the city committee on Nov. 1,” Julie Ratcliff, who handles public relations for the company, told the Report in an email.
John Zogg, Goldenrod’s Southwest region president, said his team plans to meet with stakeholders over the next 60 days and is looking forward to finding a way to help people enjoy the Scott Theatre for generations to come.
Dennis Yslas, executive director of Theatre Network of Texas, said no one has reached out to him at any point in the process.
“The thing is, nobody told us, and it’s frustrating because we can’t plan our schedule,” he said. “If we knew that six months from now City Council will make a decision and construction will start in another eight, we could plan.”
Instead, he continued, tenants are getting information secondhand.
“We’re not even sure if we’re going to stay there afterward,” Yslas said. “We’re not sure if we’ll be able to afford it. They haven’t asked us about our needs.”
As of right now, the city can’t give a more specific timeline for construction.
“It’s hard to say because there are many moving parts,” Costa said. “We don’t want to send anything to Council that it doesn’t make sense for them to support.”
Marcheta Fornoff covers the arts for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at marcheta.fornoff@fortworthreport.org. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policyhere.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.