New parking a must
COMMENTARY
By Josh Deitz

Score one great idea for Texas Christian University.

The plan to develop an apartment/retail/parking complex (as revealed in Friday’s Skiff) is another good step toward improving the area surrounding the TCU campus. TCU is the economic center of the neighborhood and can do a great deal to improve what lies on its borders.

The complex would help alleviate the recent housing shortages and allow TCU to expand future freshman class sizes without stretching the school’s resources any further. If any school has a demand for upscale apartments, it is TCU. Private housing so close to the university would be a boon for the students who live there.

The complex should also take some pressure off of the parking situation. Rather than driving to school and taking up precious parking spaces, a relatively large number of students will be able to walk to school. Imagine a few hundred fewer cars fighting for parking spaces. Sound good to you too?

Adding retail and restaurant options would benefit TCU as well. Phoenix Property Co. should include student opinions on what businesses are included in the development. Students will be the primary customers of the new establishments, so Phoenix should give them a say in the decision-making process.

The complex will also help to attract future development of the area. Berry Street is relatively decrepit at this point. Increased retail and apartment development would benefit TCU students and neighborhood residents. These developments would bring jobs and better retail parking, to name a few.

The only barrier in this pursuit is the Worth Hills neighborhood. In a number of battles with TCU, residents of the neighborhood have proven extremely uncooperative. Last year, the neighborhood initiated the drive to kick TCU students off the streets near TCU.

Rather than compromise and allow parking on only one side of the street, the neighborhood pushed banning all street parking during the school day. This decision has nearly broken the back of TCU’s student parking lots. Now the onus is on TCU to make up for this lost parking somehow.

Over the summer, neighborhood residents fought tooth and nail against efforts by the school to rezone nearby property to make way for developments like the one being discussed. Despite the fact that TCU’s development of the area would raise property values and benefit residents, the neighborhood did its best to impede the university’s efforts.

If neighborhood residents cooperate, TCU’s plans will do great things for the surrounding area. Private development of TCU property along with TCU’s steady pace of new building construction will facilitate a growing campus that will shine even brighter in Fort Worth.

With a new chancellor, TCU’s master plan is probably due for a revision, so stay tuned to the Skiff. If we’re lucky, the parking decks in the master plan will turn up sometime this summer.

Josh Deitz is a senior political science major from Atlanta, Ga.