After years of crime complaints, hundreds of police reports and more than 100 code violations, a notorious Fort Worth motel is coming down as the city intensifies its crackdown on problem properties.<\/p>\n
Crews began demolishing the Central Motel on East Lancaster Avenue, marking the city’s first demolition under its NET Force initiative, a coordinated effort to address properties plagued by crime and code violations.<\/p>\n
The demolition follows years of complaints from nearby businesses and residents about conditions at the property.<\/p>\n
“Right now, we feel way safer and better,” said Fourkan Ubaid of Metro Car Service, a nearby business.<\/p>\n
Ubaid described problems involving damaged vehicles and broken windows at nearby offices.<\/p>\n
Fort Worth police documented hundreds of reports associated with the motel, including prostitution, illegal drug activity and a murder.<\/p>\n
Officer Jentry Cotton said police regularly responded to the property and worked alongside several specialized units to address criminal activity.<\/p>\n
“We’ve been out here on a weekly basis, working with police division patrol, working with narcotics, working our vice unit,” Cotton said.<\/p>\n
City code enforcement officials also identified 123 violations across the motel’s three buildings.<\/p>\n
Fort Worth filed a lawsuit against the property’s owners this summer. The owners subsequently agreed to pay for the demolition in exchange for the city dropping the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the motel declined to comment.<\/p>\n
Cotton said the property had become a gathering place for criminal activity, with little oversight from its owners.<\/p>\n
“The owner was not in control of the property; the criminals were on the property selling drugs out of the room,” Cotton said.<\/p>\n
The demolition is part of Fort Worth’s NET Force program, which brings multiple city departments together to address properties associated with persistent criminal activity and code violations.<\/p>\n
City officials say at least six additional properties, including motels, shopping centers and apartment complexes, are being targeted in the next phase of the initiative.<\/p>\n
Signs have already been posted at some locations, warning property owners to address ongoing problems or face further enforcement action.<\/p>\n
“We want them to be accountable. We want them to take the lead on this,” said Oscar Reyes, Fort Worth’s code enforcement superintendent.<\/p>\n
According to city officials, some properties initially targeted through the program have since come into compliance, while others have closed.<\/p>\n
The Central Motel is the first property demolished as part of the crackdown, but officials say additional demolitions remain possible if owners fail to resolve violations.<\/p>\n
“We’ll come in and use all the tools that are afforded to us to bring it through to demolition, if we need to,” Reyes said.<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC DFW. AI tools helped convert the story into a digital article, and an NBC DFW journalist edited it again before publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After years of crime complaints, hundreds of police reports and more than 100 code violations, a notorious Fort…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151,116],"class_list":["post-479833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news","tag-fort-worth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}