I Wonder Why A High-Rise Building Boom Is Not Reshaping Fort Worth's Skyline?

That is a question more than one person has asked during the current economic boom where big cities all over America are seeing their downtown's transformed by new construction.

I have mentioned, previously, that nary a week goes by where I do not learn of some new big project, or projects in downtown Seattle, most recently yet one more new skyscraper, this one being of the super tall, well over 1,000 feet tall sort.

A couple weeks ago the Fort Worth Star-Telegram had an article announcing the first new semi-tall building in downtown Fort Worth in 7 years. That news had me asking I Wonder When A Super Tall Tower Will Be Built In Fort Worth?

A couple days ago I saw on Facebook that which you see above. A posting about an article in the Austin American-Statesman about the high rise building boom which is reshaping the Austin skyline.

So, that would make this blogging a variant of the bloggings about things I read in west coast online news sources which I would not be reading in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about something happening in Fort Worth. Only this time it is a Texas newspaper reporting something happening in a Texas town that is not happening in Fort Worth.

Now, why are towns like Seattle, Los Angeles, Austin, Dallas and others seeing their downtown's in boom mode? With new residential towers, skyscrapers and other developments?

While Fort Worth's downtown flounders.

Well.

Seattle, Los Angeles, Austin, Dallas and other towns are not host to America's Biggest Boondoggle. None of those booming towns have absurdly mismanaged public works projects allegedly transforming their downtown's, with the development stalled for most of this century, with very little shown for all the time and money spent.

I have mentioned, more than once, Mr. Spiffy's wise observation that the reason downtown Fort Worth is so moribund, development-wise, compared  to other booming towns, is developers are rightfully wary, not knowing if the redevelopment project north of downtown is ever going to come to fruition and be the location where they want to invest their development dollars.

Or will the existing downtown still be the place to be when America's Biggest Boondoggle comes to its likely inevitable end?

No other big city in America has a noose hanging around its neck like Fort Worth does with America's Biggest Boondoggle choking downtown development.

How is this not obvious to anyone who can see what is happening in other booming towns in America, compared to what is not happening in Fort Worth?

We are almost to 2016, with Fort Worth remaining the only city in America with a population over 500,000 with zero department stores and zero grocery stores in its downtown. Fort Worth is the only city in America with a population over 500,000 which is a ghost town on the biggest shopping day of the year.

Why are these obvious symptoms of something wrong not something being addressed? When I first arrived in Fort Worth the downtown had a vertical mall, with an ice rink on the ground floor. One could access this vertical mall via a subway, after finding parking space on giant free parking lots.

The subway and those giant free parking lots disappeared in the Radio Shack Corporate Headquarters, city-enabled, Boondoggle.

Why are the Fort Worth Boondoggle's and the damage they do not talked about, with those who perpetrate this damage on the city held accountable?

Currently no one seems to be holding America's Biggest Boondoggle, also known as the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island Vision, responsible for the dearth of development in downtown Fort Worth.

Whatever happened to all the development which was supposed to occur along Lancaster Avenue, once the old overheard freeway came down, with the road upgraded, landscaped, and bizarre lighting artwork installed? Where are the new restaurants, resident towers, department stores, grocery stores  and more along Lancaster Avenue?

Oh, I think I know.

Any developer who might think of sinking money in that area, at the far south end of downtown Fort Worth, is concerned that north of downtown, where America's Biggest Boondoggle has its imaginary island, that that is where growth will be happening, so the developer thinks let's just wait and see before we commit any money to building anything......