TCU’s transformation of Berry Street is underway with nearby restaurants feeling some effects — particularly with parking.
Still, the business owners are excited about the university’s efforts to make the street the city’s “place to be” through a master plan that aims to revitalize the area, including with a new mixed housing and retail development.
“When it’s done, I think it’ll be overall a really good thing,” said Fort Worth chef Jon Bonnell, who operates one of his local spots, Jon’s Grille, directly across from construction that has begun. “But it’s going to be a little painful in the meantime with less traffic, just more difficulties getting there, more roads shut down.”
Texas Christian University officials began the first stage of the Berry Street transformation earlier this year. The area’s older lackluster buildings with their various uses present an easy opportunity for the university, said Jason Soileau, assistant vice chancellor for planning, design and construction. The university also recognized a need to offer more housing as the student body grows.
“We know that with an appropriately designed mixed-use development, we can get students and probably young professionals living on Berry Street, going to retail that’s on Berry Street and having offices on Berry Street, and it just creates that dynamic, rich, vibrant community that I think is necessary to really make a successful development,” Soileau said.
As construction is underway, the university is making an effort to communicate with local businesses and residents to minimize disruptions, Soileau said.
Space previously mostly taken up by a parking lot now hosts a towering crane as construction is underway to build Morado on Berry, the planned mixed housing and retail development, between Cockrell and Greene avenues.
Construction is currently underway to build Morado on Berry, a mixed housing and retail development along Berry Street. Morado is the Spanish word for purple. (Courtesy image | Endeavor)
Juniors and seniors, no longer required to live on campus, expressed in surveys that they still wished to live close by, Soileau said. With capacity for 780 residents, Morado on Berry will offer upperclassmen and graduate students apartment-style housing.
Unlike an on-campus residence hall, the building will not be operated by TCU, although it will be on university property. Austin-based real estate developer Endeavor will lease out the apartments.
The university works closely with the company to ensure Morado fits in with the rest of the student experience, Soileau said.
“It’s going to very much feel like a TCU community,” he said.
Meanwhile, some nearby restaurant owners say that while customers now have fewer parking options, the headache is temporary. Those entrepreneurs expect Morado on Berry to boost their businesses by attracting more students.
Jon’s Grille, named in honor of Bonnell’s late friend Jon Meyerson, whose long-closed restaurant on University Drive had the same name, has served up American fare to students and locals since the popular Fort Worth chef opened his iteration on Berry Street in 2022.
Jon’s Grille on Berry Street on Oct. 2, 2025. (McKinnon Rice | Fort Worth Report)
With greater retail choices comes greater competition, but Bonnell is not concerned. He said more options will have students spending more time in the area.
“I feel like a rising tide raises all ships,” he said. “I want more independent restaurants. I’d like for students to feel like there’s so much to do walking around campus from their school housing or their stealth dorms right behind Jon’s Grille, and that they don’t feel like they have to hop in an Uber and go downtown or go to 7th all the time.”
Just off Berry Street is Perrotti’s Pizza on Greene Avenue, run by brothers Austin and Nick Perrotti. Owner and CEO Austin, who earned a bachelor’s degree from TCU in 2017, said the university community makes up a large number of the restaurant’s customers when school is in session.
“They really love us, and we really love them. So it’s been a lot of fun being able to be their go-to pizza place for the many years we’ve been around,” Perrotti said.
Brothers Nick Perrotti, left, and Austin Perrotti pose for a photo inside Perrotti’s Pizza on Greene Avenue Oct. 8, 2025. Nick is the general manager, while Austin is the owner and CEO. Austin said the caricature in the restaurant’s logo is of their late father and grandfather, and therefore four Perrotti family members are in the photo. (McKinnon Rice | Fort Worth Report)
Perrotti’s is located on the ground level beneath TCU’s Molly Reid Hall, apartment-style housing with a capacity for 560 students.
Austin Perrotti said that despite short-term challenges like less parking and visibility, he is looking forward to hopefully serving more customers.
“Yes, there certainly are going to be some small grievances with that,” he said. “But all good things, you have to have some sacrifice.”
McKinnon Rice is the higher education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at mckinnon.rice@fortworthreport.org.
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