The historic TXU North Main power plant at the Trinity River north of downtown now has significant protection against demolition under rezoning the Fort Worth City Council approved Tuesday.
The council attached historic significant endangered protection to the plant, owned by Tarrant County College. That status confers significant but not absolute protection against demolition. The college did not oppose the designation.
“I’m really proud of the council,” Jerre Tracy, executive director of preservation nonprofit Historic Fort Worth, said after the council’s vote. “I think they have gone through a very important learning curve about the benefits that designated buildings bring.”
Historic Fort Worth asked the council in the fall to begin the process of establishing protection for the building after Tarrant County College put it up for sale. The council directed the matter to the city’s Historic and Cultural Landmarks Commission, which voted Feb. 9 to recommend historic significant endangered status to the council.
The council voted 9-0, with two council members absent, to confer the status. Had the college opposed, the commission and council would have needed supermajority votes to approve the measure. The property previously had no protection against demolition.
The college pulled the 8-acre site off the market after receiving one bid, TCC chief financial officer Pamela Anglin told the Report after the Feb. 9 meeting. The offer was below its $9.4 million market value, meaning the college could not legally sell it at that price under state law, Anglin said.
Tracy said the TXU power plant news is another indication in what she said is Fort Worth’s growing embrace of historic preservation and the economic benefits it brings to private developers and the city.
“We’ve seen an understanding that did not exist,” she said.
The 113-year-old shuttered plant has appeared on Historic Fort Worth’s Most Endangered Places list several times.
John Roberts, a retired Fort Worth architect and longtime preservationist instrumental in assembling the Most Endangered Places lists for years, said the TXU plant deserved protection given its place in the city’s history.
“The power plant was instrumental to the city,” he said. “Hopefully, this will lead to a restoration project. I’m just hopeful something good will come of this.”
Scott Nishimura is senior editor for local government accountability and a Fort Worth City Hall reporter at the Report. Reach him at scott.nishimura@fortworthreport.org.
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