Developers are considering a $150 million rebuild of an affordable housing complex in the heart of Fort Worth’s Near Southside neighborhood, according to documents submitted to city officials.
Dallas-based firm Ojala Partners LP has drawn up preliminary plans to almost quadruple the number of apartment units at Siddons Place, a development managed by Fort Worth Housing Solutions, the city’s public housing authority.
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The company filed a pre-development study to solicit city feedback for the overhaul. The report provides few specifics about the rationale or timeline of the two-phase project. A representative of Fort Worth Housing Solutions declined to comment this week.
Ojala Partners and Fort Worth Housing Solutions have partnered on projects before. In 2020, the pair unveiled Casa de Esperanza, an old hotel repurposed to shelter for those experiencing chronic homelessness.
Only renters at or below 60% of the city’s annual median income can live in Siddons Place. Its 152 units — all subsidized — are grouped into seven, three-story buildings spread across 7.4 acres off Pennsylvania Avenue, packed between clinics and churches. An appraisal report published last summer estimates that the site’s apartments are at 97.4% occupancy.
Originally called Pennsylvania Place, the complex welcomed its first residents in 1998. It was, at the time, the first new multifamily housing project constructed in the medical district in about 40 years.
Renderings of the prospective redevelopment depict an entirely reconfigured arrangement. If initial plans take form, the property’s size could swell to from roughly 322,000 square feet to about 500,000 square feet. Its 650 apartments — four times the current amount — would regroup into two campuses of four-story buildings, the largest stretching from South Jennings to Cleveland Avenue. The living spaces would encircle two, five-level parking garages, each with hundreds of spots.
Whether current Siddons tenants are aware of the changes — and where and how they might be relocated in the event of a demolition — is unclear. It’s also uncertain how many of the new units will be set aside for affordable residences. The property is currently listed for sale on the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs website for $45.7 million.
The rebuild wouldn’t be the first undertaken by Fort Worth Housing Solutions. The city began ripping down its Cavile Place development in Stop Six toward the onset of the pandemic, one leg of a broader effort to revitalize the neighborhood. The Cowan Place senior living facility, one of several buildings the agency plans to build in Cavile’s wake, opened last November.
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