A Message From Our President - May 7
May 7,2020
Your City Awaits
In the Star-Telegram a couple weeks ago, you saw downtown on the front page twice. The first story featured Sundance Square businesses who shared optimism about the future and restaurants retooling by making to-go orders their temporary business model. The other was a photo of an empty Main Street at mid-day, a stark image representing the entire city pulling together to flatten the curve.
These two stories happening in downtown at the same time. Businesses are doing what they must to both comply with our elected officials’ orders and keep the wheels of commerce turning.
At its core, DFWI’s mission is to encourage large groups of people - you - to gather in downtown to share ideas, explore our city, celebrate, live, shop, dine, work, play and interact with each other. We invite you, ready downtown for you and work to ensure your experience is positive when you arrive. But our local and national response to Covid-19 is the exact opposite of our mission.
That doesn’t mean DFWI and our partners have stopped working to make your center city better.
Our Public Improvement District's on-street personnel continue their clean and safe operations and we have remained fully staffed. Necessary precautions are being taken by our crews, and work plans have adjusted in light of the city’s response to the coronavirus.
Our marketing and research staff suspended our national office recruitment campaign and is focused on promotion of storefront businesses, passing along relevant corona-related information to the public and gathering market data that helps us understand what is happening in different downtown sectors.
Special projects, notably the Hemphill-Lamar Tunnel and Lamar 2-Way are now complete and the T&P Transit Connector and Heritage Plaza are being advanced. While downtown street and pedestrian traffic has been lighter, City road, water and sewer crews have been implementing planned improvements.
We are working on a September reboot for the MAIN ST Fort Worth Arts Festival and are looking forward to the GM Financial Parade of Lights in November. We are hoping for the best, but responsible planning will be our watchword.
As the reopening begins, take pride knowing that many people have been hard at work, keeping things clean and beautiful, pivoting amidst social distancing, upgrading infrastructure, helping the homeless and maintaining momentum as much as possible. Your downtown is ready.
Your city awaits…you.
Andy Taft
President, Downtown Fort Worth, Inc.