A planned 20-foot-tall sign highlighting a Target store and other retailers planned in a shopping center on Chisholm Trail Parkway is going back to the drawing board.
The Fort Worth Board of Adjustment on May 20 rejected the sign for being too large under the city’s zoning ordinance meant to limit visual clutter on the highway.
The shopping center is under development at Chisholm Trail and McPherson Boulevard, and developer United Commercial Development of Dallas has been working with the Pattison ID firm on a signage plan.
“We understand the Chisholm Trail beautification guidelines,” Doug Hallam, Pattison ID senior project manager, told board of adjustment members in requesting exceptions from city zoning ordinance on sign dimensions.
“We’ve studied the area, we understand and appreciate maintaining the topography, the plantings and surroundings and so forth, and we tried to balance that,” Hallam said.
The Shops at Chisholm Trail will include 12 smaller yet-to-be-named retail establishments strung along the northern side of McPherson, bounded by Chisholm Trail Parkway on the east and Brewer Boulevard on the west.
The proposed sign would be over 20 feet wide, when regulations allow no more than 12 feet. The messaging area would be just over 258 square feet, compared to the ordinance maximum of 200 square feet. The sign would be installed close to the southbound lanes of Chisholm Trail Parkway and its frontage road.
Hallam said his firm worked with city staff in February to reach an agreement that defined all intended signage for the center.
Dorothy Parks, representing the developer, said they had reduced the total number of signs for the shopping center to seven from 14, and cut the number along Chisholm Trail Parkway to one from three.
United Commercial and Pattison have continued to work with city staff to modify the remaining parkway sign to reduce its overall height to an allowed 20 feet.
But by reducing the height, Hallam said, the width needed to be increased to make messages readable.
Margaret DeMoss, representing the Scenic Fort Worth nonprofit, referred the board to a letter of opposition from former Fort Worth Mayor Kenneth Barr. Barr was instrumental in guiding the development of Chisholm Trail as mayor and later as chairman of the North Texas Tollway Authority.
At the end of Barr’s tenure as mayor in 2003, the city council passed a resolution designating the parkway as a scenic corridor to protect its character.
In his letter, Barr said, “I urge this board to support the city’s ordinance. Granting the variances for a wider sign and a larger advertising messaging area is not in harmony with the spirit and purposes of this zoning ordinance nor does the ordinance appear to create a hardship.”
DeMoss reinforced the message.
“Not only do we believe this variance does not demonstrate hardship, we believe allowing larger signs sets a dangerous precedent that goes against the years of planning and public consensus about this very special road,” she said.
The board voted 7-4 to reject the requested variances. If installed, the sign will have to comply with the size requirements in the zoning regulations.
The board raised concerns over the city’s development services department’s processes regarding the establishment of sign agreement contracts with developers.
The heart of their concern was why sign size regulations were not considered in the February agreement.
Fort Worth Board of Adjustment
Documenter: Doug Wilhelm
Date: May 14, 2026
Learn more about this meeting by clicking here. For the agenda, click here.
Other commercial cases
In a case continued from their April 15 meeting, the board rejected a variance request from Bank OZK for electronic changeable copy on a monument sign at their location at Basswood Boulevard and North Beach Street.
The bank would use the changeable sign to advertise its products and services. The board’s majority position was that electronic changeable copy was not a significant benefit to the public in this instance.
However, in a separate case, the board did approve a sign with electronic changeable copy because the information provided would be fuel prices, which have been fluctuating rapidly.
At the Texaco gas station at 5400 Brentwood Stair Road, an older sign with manually changed prices will be modified to an electronic display.
A full listing of the commercial and residential cases considered by the board is included in the agenda.
Doug Wilhelm is a member of the Fort Worth Report Documenters crew. If you believe anything in this account is inaccurate, please email us at news@fortworthreport.org with “Correction Request” in the subject line.
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