Planned rail lines would attract commercial development

Should commuter rail plans for North Texas come through, counties across the region may see a variety of developments crop up along rail routes and at passenger stops in the future.

Regional rail will attract different types of developments than Fort WorthÂ’s proposed streetcar system would, but in order to maintain any kind of transportation-oriented development, North Texas will have to have a seamless mobility system, area transportation officials say.

The Rail North Texas project is a 250-mile spread of commuter rail lines running through six counties. The lines are planned to take riders to areas including Cleburne, Richardson, Irving, Frisco, McKinney, Dallas, Fort Worth, Waxahachie, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and the Texas Motor Speedway.

Development oriented toward regional rail stops likely includes both small- and large-scale projects, said Fort Worth City Council member Jungus Jordan. Large-scale projects could include corporate, retail or residential developments. Retail shopping centers in larger developments would likely include grocery stores, Jordan said. Smaller developments could include those with coffee shops, dry cleaners, restaurants and convenience stores.

“What would be developed at each railroad station would be a microcosm of the community,” said Jordan, who represents District 6. “You’re not necessarily going to have a Mockingbird Station at every stop. It will be a situation where this is where I live, this is where I want to pick up my essentials and groceries. This is where I want to eat. It would allow me to live along the rail station for convenience and economic reasons.”

Two rail stations are planned for JordanÂ’s District 6, one at Interstate Highway 820 and Granbury Road, and another at Sycamore School Road.

At the Sycamore School Road station “we intend to have a retail meeting place, green space where you can meet and congregate with the other neighborhoods, and you’ll have a coming together of the community,” Jordan said. “You can have restaurants, coffee houses, dry cleaners, retail for groceries and clothing. You might have offices for a real estate company or offices for financial advisers. At some point we might consider putting city services in a remote office along a train station where people can access it and file permits. There are infinite opportunities to have successful retail and economic development along the train stations because what it does is it brings people to that location.”

Because commuter rail stops are located fairly far apart, and because the rail cars will travel through more rural areas than urban transportation modes such as streetcars, developments will have a lot of room to grow, said Phillip Poole, lead development executive with TownSite Co.

Poole also serves on the city of Fort WorthÂ’s Streetcar Study Committee.

“What the Rail North Texas initative looks at is really connecting hub to hub, in other words from one city to another, the trains go longer distances and the stops are fewer,” Poole said. The trains “can bring people in from a residential area into an office area, so it’s also a connection between two different land uses.”

Streetcar stops typically are located every quarter mile or so, Poole said, on commuter rail, however, stops would be located at major destination points. Because the destination points typically arenÂ’t in inner city locations, developments can be larger and more intense.

“You don’t want to come down on West Seventh Street and build developments at a huge scale, which would require a lot of parking garages, but when you do transportation-oriented development, they can be on bigger parcels of land,” Poole said. “It’s hard to get 100 acres in a city, but you can do that on commuter rail routes. I think what we’re going to see is commuter rail going to employment centers, and then you’ll be able to leave a residential center and go to an employment center.

“Where things aren’t built very densely right now, they may become very dense, but that doesn’t have to intrude into residential neighborhoods,” Poole said. “What you’re building can be a generator of activity rather than a detriment. People are smart about bringing you by some of the thing you would need on a train, like Starbucks or restaurants, you can pick up what you need or even wind up having a shopping experience in a retail development. It doesn’t have to negatively impact the character of an area, but it can allow you to create energy in an area that already has character.”

Many communities across North Texas already are working to prepare for potential transportation-oriented development associated with the commuter rail system, said Fort WorthÂ’s Assistant City Manager Fernando Costa. 

“Fort Worth is doing a great deal of work on that front,” Costa said. “In virtually any community along the proposed rail lines, especially along the rail stations, you’ll find that folks have become increasingly aware in recent years of the benefits of transportation-oriented development and the need to make appropriate public policy decisions well in advance of these rail stations being developed.”