The one thing I am concerned with this design at this location is for the security of the ground floor units. There are a lot of homeless and transient people in this area and I would be concerned about living on the ground floor with an outside patio. That is why I think retail works better for the ground floor.
I agree with you, rriojas71. This rendering from Weatherford thread sums up those concerns, meanwhile county jail is just blocks away. A guy I know had someone try and jump in the back of his pick-up a few years ago while waiting at the stoplight at Henderson, ended up having to stick a gun in the guy's face to make him back off. Said he came out of nowhere, threw his bag in the back and started climbing in and insisted on catching a ride somewhere...and this guy is short-tempered to begin with, so they picked the wrong truck to ask for a ride I guess. Not sure what I would have done in that situation, probably taken off before they could get that close to do anything....jump the curb, run the light, do a u-turn.... at that point I welcome getting pulled over.
Revisiting this - it appeared you guys were suggesting that ground floor units should not have direct access to sidewalks (or perhaps small patios?) in certain parts of Downtown. Please correct me if I misunderstood.
I've noticed from Fort Worth and downtowns in other US cities (especially 2021-2022 when homelessness increased everywhere) that the places that seem to attract encampments or clusters of people who seem to be "hiding out" are those that have no ground floor windows. I do not mean in any way to vilify those who lack housing. We are, however, hyper focused on promoting good desig for a pedestrian environment that attracts/welcomes large numbers of people, is comfortable and attractive for people of all ages to walk.
If there are no "eyes on the street" (i.e. windows facing the street so presents feeling that activity on the sidewalk is visible by neighbors), that part of the street feels less safe, period. Blank walls at ground floor level are a MAJOR NO-NO.
Im not an architect and am not on the DDRB (so haven't seen the presentation including their reasoning behind the dead ground floor uses) but noticed on those floor plans a lot of "back of house" uses such as mechanical and electrical closets, placed at prime corner locations.
I'm sure there are trade-offs to push those uses to another location, but too bad. That is why we have design guidelines - to promote excellence in the urban realm. They appear to have just asked to waive the entire ground floor design standard. There are now TONS of examples of ways to make ground floor apartment unts engaging: stoops, balconies, live/work units, etc. I want FW to be a good partner with developers but sometimes the developers/architects dont get it right with the first plan and really need to adjust. Because making the street/sidewalks truly great for walking is probably the single most important part of the design guidelines. And the building face is a massive part of that pedestrian environment. It affects whether someone will build across from it, whether people will choose to live in that neighborhood....
