Fort Worth cancels $70M contract with developer for ‘Evans and Rosedale Project'

The City of Fort Worth has canceled a developer’s contract to build a $70 million mixed-use complex in the Historic Southside.

The Evans and Rosedale project has been in the works since 2018 and would bring more than 300 total housing units to the area, but the city says unacceptable delays have forced them to pull the deal.

Community members called the cancellation disappointing, telling NBC 5 they’d been waiting years for this badly needed development to get underway in their neighborhood.

A sign posted in the field between Evans Avenue and Missouri Avenue in Fort Worth says “Coming Soon”: a promise that the stretch of empty land would turn into a live-play destination that breathes life into the Historic Southside.

But the Evans and Rosedale project hasn’t broken ground five years after it was announced.

“We made a promise to this community; This community has been looking for it before me,” said Chris Nettles, Fort Worth’s city councilman in District 8. “And so for our efforts to make sure that something does happen, we have to move in a different direction.”

On Dec. 17, Fort Worth city officials announced it had canceled developer Hoque Global’s contract to build the Evans and Rosedale project.

First announced in 2018, the $70 million plan called for 292 apartments and 20 townhomes to be built in the area, along with retail shops and office space.

Community leaders told NBC 5 it sounded like a game changer for the Historic Southside, once an epicenter for Black-owned business – but which has fallen behind other areas in development.

“At this moment, as you can see, there’s not a lot that’s here,” said James Walker, president of the Historic Southside Neighborhood Association. “The development that we were looking for to take place would have meant a lot to the community.”

In 2021, Hoque Global announced that construction on the project would begin in the fall of 2022.

But city leaders said the company then asked for multiple extensions to push that date back, with some projections that ground wouldn’t be broken until September 2024.

In their notice canceling the contract, the city said, “Inflation, interest rate increases, and cooling commercial development led to unacceptable delays,” leading the city to pull the deal from Hoque Global.

“They have never been able to come to the table to secure financing and close on the land, and so we have not been able to move further into the process,” Nettles said. “That’s not acceptable. We can’t continue to push it along.”

NBC 5 reached out to Hoque Global for a response to the city’s decision to cancel the contract.

“No one has wanted the timeline for Evans and Rosedale to move along and meet deadlines more than we have,” the company wrote in a statement. “The project with deep community engagement has required time and detail, and we have followed the city’s lead, all during very challenging economic times.”

“Initial construction launch dates were impacted, and real estate cycles have been missed,” the statement continued. “The construction plans were completed in January 2023, and the city has not yet processed building permits.”

“In addition, the city has not yet completed its process for environmental clearance with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality,” a spokesperson for Hoque Global said.

City leaders told NBC 5 that the TCEQ permit couldn’t be issued until the developer closed on the land.

Councilman Chris Nettles told NBC5 that timing for city funding played a role in the decision to cancel the contract: the city has allocated $13.4 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding to support the project, and that funding has to be used before a certain cut-off date.

City leaders said in the coming months, Fort Worth would be looking to identify a new contractor to lead the project. All city funds allocated for the project remain available to be applied for the next iteration of the Evans and Rosedale plan, and the city did not pay anything to Hoque Global from the time the company was selected for the contract in 2019 up until the cancellation of the contract according to a city spokesperson.

Community members are left hoping someone can bring this plan for the Historic Southside back to life.

“You should just have an idea how that feels,” Walker said. “Now we’ve got to start over from scratch, we have to go vet another developer, bring them in, and work the process over.”

The city of Fort Worth said they hope the next developer for the project will be able to break ground in 2025.