by Mark Miller | photos courtesy of North Fort Worth Alliance
Making sure residents of North Fort Worth are knowledgeable about what’s happening in their area is the big reason an organization called the North Fort Worth Alliance exists.
Founded in 2006 by Shirley Gansser and Laura Lee-Hoag at the urging of council member Sal Espino, it now includes board members from nearly 50 local communities and neighborhood associations representing more than 34,000 households. It focuses on sharing ideas, and promoting quality of life issues like zoning changes, bond issues, and community arts projects to those in power to make those decisions.
“We’re a collective supporting one another on issues that may go before the city,” said Rusty Fuller, president for the past eight years after also serving in the role in 2011-2015. “They relate to services that may not have been built for us.”
Such services include roads, hospitals, parklands, libraries, etc. With the NFW Alliance’s help, one new library has already been built with another north of Haslet in progress, plus another community center west of Haslet.
“We were able to get what I call the first real community center built at the Northwest Community Park that’s going to be staffed by city staff with programs for families,” Rusty said. “We got the North Division Police Building built.”
NFW Alliance’s basic reach extends from U.S. Highway 377 to the east, Business 287 to the west, North Tarrant Parkway to the south and the Fort Worth city limits to the north. Much of the area is owned by Hillwood Properties as part of its Alliance Texas project.
“They have been super partners in creating jobs and a better way of life for an awful lot of people around here,” Rusty said about Hillwood. “I’ve never seen a corporation like them that truly has the community as their first focus and if it makes sense. If it doesn’t make sense for the community, they don’t do it.”
The organization collaborates with developers like Hillwood to attract businesses and comes to city leaders with plans to address needs. Rusty said the group’s biggest achievement happened before his becoming president when people like Shirley and Laura convinced Texas Health Resources to fill a huge need by building the neo-natal/OB-GYN baby delivery facility on Golden Triangle at 35W. Within five years, it expanded into the full-fledged Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Alliance. In between, Medical City Alliance Hospital came in at Tarrant Parkway and 35W.
“The other big accomplishment we’ve had is our ability to lobby for roads and better mobility in the far north,” said Rusty, who has lived in Alliance for 22 years since moving from upstate New York. “When we first came out here, most of these homeowners’ associations were built on old county roads with two lanes. In about 2008 was our first big success. We had money put into the budget and have had a large amount put into the city transportation budget in the last 17 years.”
The NFW Alliance typically meets on the third Saturday of each month to discuss multiple challenges.
“The growth happened so fast out here that nobody noticed we needed to buy some land for some parks,” Rusty said. “They were requiring the builders of the homes and the HOAs to set aside open land where possible for hiking trails and things like that. They didn’t look at things like athletic fields or just family parks, so consequently there wasn’t any land.
“When they finally turned around and realized ‘we’ve got 200,000 people here and no parks. What do we do?’ We’ve been hammering on that issue trying to get services up north.”
Fuller pointed out how different the North Fort Worth area is from that within the 820 Loop. He added North Fort Worth is more like a suburb than a city with newer homes and neighborhoods than its neighbors to the south.
“We’ve been hammering out the fact we probably have the highest concentration of residential and commercial growth anywhere in the city,” Rusty said. “We don’t have the same concentration of ethnicities as near downtown, but we have everyone represented here.
“If you look at the 2020 census where it breaks it down by race, the races in our area are all over the map. You go downtown, they are concentrated in certain areas. So, people don’t perceive us as having the same problems.”