A $250,000 grant from the North Texas Community Foundation will help support the Historic Northside District Main Street Pilot Program to help residents concerns about displacement, housing affordability, and preservation.
Christopher Torres
ctorres@star-telegram.com
Anita Ramos was born in Houston but was raised and still lives in the Historic Northside neighborhood off Harrington Avenue.
“If I’m going down I-35, and I cross 28th Street, I feel like someone puts a warm blanket around me, because I know I’m about to be home,” Ramos said.
In the last few years, she has seen new housing developments and the expansion of the Stockyards and Panther Island. She was excited about the changes, but realized they weren’t meant for current residents but for newcomers. She feared being pushed out of her neighborhood by rising housing costs.
This is why, last July, she joined the Community Action Committee to address displacement concerns and help residents learn about new developments in the area.
This initiative is driven by The Fort Worth Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, which recently received $250,000 from the Fund for Good grant from the North Texas Community Foundation. It will use the grant for the Historic Northside District Main Street pilot program, which plans to establish an independent commercial district while alleviating residents’ concerns about displacement, housing affordability and preservation.
The program is a partnership with Main Street America, which works to create business corridors in urban areas. The Hispanic Chamber is the managing organization for the program.
Dee Lara O’Neal, Main Street Project manager for the Northside, says the grant is more than commercial work. It focuses on the economy and the preservation of the Northside neighborhood’s culture and character.
“When this Fund for Good opportunity came up, we were really thinking about how to continue doing this work that’s been ongoing because it hasn’t always been linear, “O’Neal said. “It’s been a process to bring more resources to that community development work.”
The grant will support an independent nonprofit to steward the Historic Northside District community’s work and eventually replace the Hispanic Chamber to lead the efforts.
The funds will also support a housing study. The study, recommended by the Urban Land Institute Advisory Services Panel in 2024, will explore strategies to stabilize neighborhoods as development accelerates and home values rise. It will focus on duplexes or quadplexes that fit the character and needs of the neighborhood.
The Historic Northside boundaries stretch roughly along North Main Street from Grand Avenue to Exchange Avenue and from Lincoln Avenue and to the railroad tracks east of North Main. It is home to 11,000 people, 97% percent of whom identify as Hispanic.
The city approved a $1 billion expansion plan for the Stockyards in 2024 that includes commercial and residential development, underground parking garages and improvements to the Cowtown Coliseum. The expansion has since been put on an indefinite hold over dispute between the project’s developers. For Panther Island, plans are moving forward to dig a 1.5-mile bypass channel in the Trinity River to create the island and open the gates for further development. Construction is expected to begin this summer.
In August 2022, Historic Northside was one of two neighborhoods, along with Polytechnic Heights, to join Fort Worth’s first pilot program to create business corridors through a partnership with Main Street America.
In 2023, the Hispanic Chamber was one of six organizations recognized by Main Street America and General Motors through the GM on Main Street Grant Program. The chamber used the grant to fund a concert series in Mejorar Marine Park with local musical performances, a vendor market, and food trucks.
The following year, the Hispanic Chamber surveyed residents, business owners and visitors on what they consider important to preserve or change in the Historic Northside District.
In September 2024, the Urban Land Institute Advisory Services Program, which gathers real estate professionals, in partnership with the Fort Worth Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, held a week-long workshop for eight panelists to explore the concerns of Fort Worth Northside residents.
The panelists recommended a variety of tasks, from a zoning overlay to preserve the neighborhood’s historical integrity, to allowing construction of residential units above retail establishments and transforming Marine Park with art from local artists and a recognition of the artist Selena performing at the park in 1993.
The Community Action Committee was one of the recommendations fulfilled last year. It will explore the recommendations and challenges and address some displacement concerns.
Fernando Costa, a member of the committee and former assistant city manager, said the Northside is a place with a distinct character that is important for Fort Worth to preserve, but with new developments, there has to be a plan on how it can continue to thrive.
“The Northside needs revitalization, the Northside needs new development, we want to support it,” Costa said. “At the same time the other side of the coin is that we don’t want that new development to be generic or insensitive to the historic character of the neighborhood. Because if that happens, the effect is that it will change the neighborhood beyond recognition.”
Sharon Warren, president of the Far Greater North Side Historical Neighborhood Association and a member of the committee, says that with the Stockyards and Panther Island on either side of the neighborhood, she does not want her community, which sits between the two, to be overlooked.
The Main Street program and recommendations from the Urban Land Institute have helped bring different people and perspectives together to build community and educate them about various changes in their neighborhood, Warren said.
“We do not want to stop progress, but we want to make sure that our culture remains in that area,” Warren said.
This story was originally published March 6, 2026 at 11:00 AM.
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Kamal Morgan covers racial equity issues for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He came to Texas from the Pensacola News Journal in Florida. Send tips to his email or Twitter.