A Fun Sunday Fort Worth Trinity River Vision Boondoggle Bike Tour

Yesterday I blogged about a bizarre bit of propaganda that touted something being called Panther Island Pavilion as a revolutionary game changer that is changing the face of music in Fort Worth and the world beyond, with this Panther Island Pavilion music venue being a huge attraction that will put Fort Worth on the music map.

I read this propaganda and wondered to myself if it were possible that the totally nondescript Rockin' the River location, which I'd checked out previously, could possibly have morphed into something special, since I last looked at it.

So, I decided to take myself, and my bike, on a Fort Worth Boondoggle Tour on this next to last Sunday of May. I drove to Trinity Park, via the 7th Street bridge, whose new arches, I must say, look cool. This will be a good-looking bridge, when completed, methinks.

Let the Fort Worth Boondoggle Tour begin.

The photo at the top is part of the downtown Fort Worth campus of Tarrant County College. This part of the college was supposed to be larger, with part of it on the opposite side of the Trinity River. After millions of dollars in cost over runs it was decided to spend millions more to turn the defunct Radio Shack Corporate Headquarters into the main campus of the downtown Fort Worth campus of Tarrant County College.

You are looking at the former Radio Shack Corporate Headquarters, that became a college, below.

Fort Worth's Boondoggles sort of feed on each other, at times. Radio Shack's Corporate Headquarters, that Radio Shack could not afford, and soon had to sell, came about with a land grab via eminent domain. From the Radio Shack Boondoggle Fort Worth lost acres of free parking, which, for decades, had made access to downtown an easy pleasant experience, because along with the free parking there was the world's shortest subway line to take you from the free parking to the heart of downtown Fort Worth. And the subway ride was also free. The Radio Shack Boondoggle clearly did lasting damage to downtown Fort Worth. I think of that anytime I need to park in downtown Fort Worth.

Well, let's leave those Fort Worth Boondoggles behind and visit some Trinity River Vision Boondoggles.

Below we are looking at the confluence of the West and Clear Forks of the Trinity River. This is also the location of the Trinity River Vision's Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats. This is the area described in the dfw.com propaganda article I blogged about yesterday, with the below paragraph...

Over the past two years, Panther Island Pavilion, a 40-acre space tucked away underneath Henderson Street just outside downtown, has risen from a barren patch of real estate you might not even notice on your jog along the Trinity Trails to become a focal point not only for civic planners with an eye on tomorrow, but for the city and state’s music industry.

Impressive isn't it? Actually, in person, this is a mess. J.D. Granger references new and improved music stages. But, what I saw today, was the stage I'd seen previously, is now missing, replaced by the two blue outhouses you see  at the center of the picture. The stage on the right has been altered since I last saw it.

A couple lifeguard perches have been added. The sign on the lifeguard perch says it is "A PRODUCT OF THE  TRINITY RIVER VISION."

Hubris.

The sign also advises "SWIM AT OWN RISK."  If a floater runs into trouble does the lifeguard shout that you are swimming at your own risk?

That is a Panther Island Pavilion cement encased outhouse you are looking at above. The stage we saw in the previous two pictures is in the background.

I think the MMG should be changed to OMG.

J.D. Granger is planning on having thousands of people attend music events that will turn Fort Worth into the live music capital  of the world. All those people? And only a few outhouses? Outhouses? Is there any other big city in America with so many outhouses near its downtown core?

Continuing on with the Trinity River Vision part of our Fort Worth Boondoggle Tour. Next stop, Coyote Drive-In.

I was hoping to be impressed by the Coyote Drive-In. I was hoping to see a well designed, landscaped, attractive modern looking take on a drive-in, something that reminded me of the long gone Skagit Drive-In of my long ago youth.

The word that quickly came to mind when I saw the Coyote Drive-In was TACKY. The cyclone fence topped by 3 strands of barbed wire is one example. The parking lot had  not been resurfaced from the days when its facing bankruptcy owner sold it to the Tarrant Regional Water District. I saw no landscaping. A fence made of worn looking boards surrounds the area where the movie watchers park. The entry to the drive-in, where you pass on to the property to get in line to buy your ticket is, well, missing a Welcome to Coyote Drive-In sign, or any other type signage. Maybe it was there and I missed seeing it.

The Coyote Drive-In has the look of something built on the cheap, the extremely cheap. Totally aesthetically unappealing. Which makes it a perfect pairing with the Panther Island Pavilion.

Leaving the Coyote Drive-In our next stop on the Fort Worth Boondoggle Tour is the world's premiere urban wakeboarding venue, Cowtown Wakepark.

I must say, of the three Trinity River Vision Boondoggle up and running operations, Cowtown Wakepark is looking the best. The last time I saw Cowtown Wakepark it was a littered, overgrown mess. Today there were 4 guys wakeboarding at the same time. Several people were watching. The thing that totally surprised me is how clean the water looked. It is a totally different color than the Trinity River which you can see at the same time you are looking at the Wakepark lake.

What is making the Wakepark lake look so clean? There is no apparent filtration system. There are no aerating fountains. The water looked so good I thought to myself the TRV Boondoggle should lose this Cowtown Wakepark thing and turn this into a swimming lake.

On thing I forgot to mention and forgot to take pictures of, because I was focused on pedaling into a very strong wind, was at the Panther Island Pavilion location a couple of the old subway stations had signage attached of the "STAGE 3", "STAGE 4" sort. Can these possibly be some of the "new" stages J.D. Granger references in the bizarre propaganda article in dfw.com? If that is the case I guess it is sort of admirable that J.D. is re-purposing something lost due to the Radio Shack Corporate Headquarters Boondoggle.

Yeah, it is really clear to me, that J.D. Granger's vision for the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle is leading Fort Worth to a very special future, a music, drive-in and wakeboard mecca for all the world to come and enjoy...

Pedaling Through The World's Most Concentrated Area Of Boondoggles & Eminent Domain Abuse

Tarrant County College East Trinity Campus

Today was the first time in a long time I pedaled my handlebars on the Trinity Trail past downtown Fort Worth.

Which would make today the first time I've seen the completed version of what was to be the Tarrant County College downtown campus.

The truncated version of the Tarrant County College is, to my eyes, a nice looking structure.

I've opined previously that if this building had been built as designed, with a bridge across the Trinity River to another building, that this might have given Fort Worth what it has never had. That being a building that people in other parts of America, and the world, might recognize as being in Fort Worth.

Unfortunately the Fort Worth Boondoggle Virus infected this project, along with the bad taste of Ed Bass and his disdain for sunken plazas, so the project was never completed as designed.

Part of the failure of this project was caused by the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle. The Army Corps of Engineers objected to the TCC project's plan to build on the river's levees. I think, maybe, because those levees are supposedly going to be removed, once the flood diversion channel is built and J.D. Granger's Magic Trees are planted.

The Former Radio Shack Headquarters

Elsie Hotpepper did not go bike riding with me today. So, that is not Elsie Hotpepper pedaling under those arches towards the former Radio Shack Corporate Headquarters, currently the downtown Tarrant County College Trinity Campus.

This area of Fort Worth really is an interesting confluence of boondoggles, eminent domain abuse and public works projects gone awry, in addition to being the location of the confluence of the West and Clear Forks of the Trinity River, which may disappear if the Granger Pond ever comes to fruition.

In this area you had Radio Shack hornswoggling Fort Worth to abuse eminent domain to take the Ripley Arnold apartments. I don't remember if Radio Shack got tax breaks, as well as property stealing help.

Instead of Fort Worth suggesting Radio Shack build elsewhere, like maybe on blighted land on the north side of the Trinity River, land that the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle will supposedly unblight, Fort Worth's Ruling Oligarchy went along with Radio Shack's plans.

No consideration was given to the fact that allowing Radio Shack to build in this location would remove acres of free parking and the world's shortest subway, from Fort Worth.

I have seldom been to downtown Fort Worth since the ease of doing so was destroyed by this boondoggle.

Radio Shack moved into its new corporate headquarters to much hoopla. Meanwhile the new downtown campus of Tarrant County College started getting constructed.

Soon problems arose, along with rising costs.

At some point in time Radio Shack found it could not afford its shiny new corporate headquarters. Eventually someone decided it would be just a dandy idea to buy Radio Shack's corporate headquarters and turn it into Tarrant County College West Trinity Campus.

I saw the Tarrant County College Trinity Campus signage on the structure today, where it used to say Radio Shack.

So, you have two downtown Tarrant County College campuses, one east of Main Street, one west.

I do not understand how anyone who follows the downtown Fort Worth ongoing soap opera of  incompetentitude can have any hope that the Trinity River Vision is not going to out boondoggle all previous Fort Worth boondoggles.

It should be epic when the inevitable crash comes.

Will J.D. Granger and his mama end up doing jail time? Who knows.

I am currently reading a book titled Confederacy of Silence: A True Tale of the New Old South. This book has given me a greater understanding of why things are the way they are here, along with understanding J.D. Granger and his mama will get in no real trouble, because that just is not the Fort Worth Way.

A Portland Streetcar Sits In Downtown Fort Worth & Other Fort Worth Boondoggles

Lately here in Fort Worth the subject of building a streetcar line has been generating all sorts of nonsense.

Apparently Fort Worth applied for Federal funds to build a streetcar. The funds were granted. Something like $25 million, if I remember right.

The first goofy thing that happened was after the money was granted a Fort Worth government person, I think a city councilman, wanted to spend the money on fixing a train yard, not understanding this was not money to be spent any ol' way Fort Worth wanted.

The Fort Wort Streetcar moved forward.

Somehow it then merged with J.D. Granger's Trinity River Vision with J.D. claiming the Streetcar had always been part of The Vision.

J.D. is now claiming that due to the Streetcar being in The Vision, developers are super-sizing their buildings, plumping them up from 3 stories to 10. I could not help but wonder why, if the Streetcar was always part of The Vision, why did it come as a revelation to developers that caused them to change the size of their buildings?

The latest Fort Worth Streetcar goofiness is on display this week in downtown Fort Worth. I assume on one of the parking lots known as Sundance Square. $25,000 was spent to bring a Portland Streetcar to Fort Worth.

Why? I really don't get it. The result of a boozy late night brainstorm? I suspect that may be the case, what with the Trinity River Vision paying the largest share of the $25,000 at $12,000. The T paid $8,000, while something called Fort Worth South chipped in $5,000.

When I first read about the Portland Streetcar I thought to myself, Portland does not have a streetcar, are they talking about the Max light rail train? So, I looked it up. Portland built a less than 4 mile long streetcar line in the downtown zone, which opened in 2001, the first built in America since WWII. The Portland Steetcar system is currently in expansion mode. Portland's Max Light Rail Train System has greatly expanded since I last rode it back in the 1990s.

J.D. Granger says, "It's a no-brainer," for the Trinity River Vision to donate $30 million to the Fort Worth Streetcar.

Was that some sort of Freudian Slip? "No-brainer?"

When I first moved to Texas there were only 3 things in downtown Fort Worth that even remotely impressed me.

One was the Fort Worth Water Gardens, south of the Convention Center. Another was Heritage Park, on a bluff overlooking the Trinity River. And the other was the Tandy Subway that took downtown visitors from big, free parking lots to a vertical shopping mall in, I think, what are known as the Tandy Towers.

Heritage Park has been allowed to turn into a boarded up, cyclone fence surrounded, embarrassing eyesore.

The Fort Worth Subway, a sort of streetcar, was lost in one of the more outrageous abuses of eminent domain that I have witnessed. Conspiring with the City of Fort Worth, Radio Shack used eminent domain to take a big housing project called Ripley Arnold, so Radio Shack could build a new corporate headquarters.

The new Radio Shack Headquarters eventually became a compound Fort Worth boondoggle.

First off the Tandy Subway was taken with nary a peep from the locals. I did not understand that at the time. I was still learning about the local sheep mentality.

The Radio Shack Headquarters soon grew on the banks of the Trinity.

Soon after that, Tarrant County College started building a new downtown campus, a short distance downriver from the Radio Shack Headquarters. I was of the opinion that the new Tarrant County College might give Fort Worth its first signature building that people outside of Fort Worth might come to associate with the city.

However, as the architectural plans for the new college were unveiled the man responsible for many of the more ugly buildings in downtown Fort Worth, but who is worshiped locally as some sort of wonderful benefactor, Ed Bass, made harsh noises about a sunken plaza at the new college.

Soon after that all sorts of hell broke loose over the college building project and its huge cost overruns.

Before the college brouhaha, Radio Shack found it could not afford its corporate headquarters. So, just a couple years after eminent domain was used to take a lot of people's living quarters and rid Fort Worth of its unique Subway, Radio Shack's headquarters was bought by German investors, who then rented some space back to Radio Shack.

Now, here is where this Fort Worth boondoggle gets really weird. The new Tarrant County College campus, construction well underway, way over budget, is sort of stopped. With Tarrant County College now buying a chunk of the Radio Shack Headquarters for a few hundred million bucks, and using that space as its new downtown Tarrant County College.

I believe the current plan for the partially aborted original new downtown Tarrant County College is for it to house administration offices and maybe some sort of nurse training.

And now we have both the former Radio Shack Headquarters and the partially aborted new Tarrant County College looking down on the Trinity River Vision. A likely boondoggle that will dwarf the Radio Shack/TCC boondoggles.

It really is a no-brainer.