10th-largest city in the country,<\/a> Fort Worth is also attracting major business investment. Robert Allen, CEO of the Fort Worth Economic Development Partnership, said the city has netted nearly $2 billion in capital investment this year, bringing an estimated 4,100 new jobs. <\/p>\n\u201cBig numbers, big announcements. We love that,\u201d Allen said.<\/p>\n
The investments include multimillion-dollar facilities from eye-care giant Alcon and Marand, a supplier to Lockheed Martin.<\/p>\n
One industry in particular is taking off.<\/p>\n
\u201cAviation and defense has doubled in our project pipeline from 2025 to 2026,\u201d Allen said. \u201cThat is our biggest gain in a specific sector over time.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the thousands of people moving to Fort Worth, as well as longtime residents, Allen said the ultimate payoff is employment.<\/p>\n
\u201cJob opportunities for people moving in, job opportunities for the people that are already here. That\u2019s what we want,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Juan Carlos Martinez, an economics professor at Dallas College, said the investment is another sign of Fort Worth\u2019s economic momentum.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy first thought was, it was a good number,\u201d Martinez said. \u201cIt shows progress.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fort Worth\u2019s identity could be part of its economic advantage<\/p>\n
Martinez said there’s enough of a population to boost the region, but having a distinct identity can help cities stand apart.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think when you have this amount of people in the region, each area can create its own identity and people will gravitate to it,\u201d Martinez said.<\/p>\n
For Fort Worth, that identity is unmistakably cowtown.<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s Western heritage received an international spotlight during the World Cup, when thousands of visitors came to North Texas and experienced Fort Worth\u2019s Stockyards and cowboy culture.<\/p>\n
Allen believes that global exposure could have an impact beyond tourism by introducing Fort Worth to international companies and investors.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur international pipeline of business is growing and continues to grow,\u201d Allen said. \u201cSo some of that has to be attributed to the World Cup exposure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Allen says their biggest target now is trying to increase the corporate footprint by attracting new corporations and headquarters. <\/p>\n
But it’s also strategic, he says. <\/p>\n
“I have been clear with anybody that will talk to me, we do not say yes to every project. We analyze them, we use data. To back our decision-making in very close partnership with the city of Fort Worth and the counties that we work with to ensure that when we are taking a project forward, we are confident that it is gonna be a good project for the city of Fort Worth,” Allen said. <\/p>\n
Trying to hold onto the city’s identity as they climb ranks in population and job growth. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fort Worth\u2019s rapid growth is showing up in more than its population. As the newly minted 10th-largest city…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-482717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482717","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=482717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}