Hey Westoplexians,

This week we've got a baby giraffe that needs a name, a festival worth marking your calendar for, a restaurant closure that stings, a city planning for its future, a cultural debate playing out in real time, and an insurance bill that's probably making you question your life choices — welcome to the Westoplex.

Here's what caught my eye this week.

-josh

A baby girl giraffe was born at the Fort Worth Zoo on May 31, and she is absolutely precious. Born to mom Kala and dad Apollo, she came into the world standing 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighing 152 pounds — which, for the record, is a perfectly normal Tuesday at the giraffe barn. She's been bonding with Kala behind the scenes and is expected to start mingling with the rest of the herd any day now.

Here's the fun part: the TODAY show partnered with the Zoo to let the public name her, and voting is open right now through June 27. The three options are Kumi (Swahili for "ten," since she's Kala's 10th calf), Honey (because she's apparently as sweet as can be), and Iris. The winning name gets announced on the TODAY show on June 27.

This is Kala's 10th calf, which is remarkable. She's basically the MVP of the Fort Worth Zoo's giraffe program — and the Zoo's reticulated giraffe herd has been a conservation bright spot, as the species is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List with populations having dropped by 50% over the last three decades. Every calf matters.

Go vote. It takes 30 seconds and you get to feel a tiny bit responsible for whatever this beautiful animal ends up being called for the rest of her life. That's a good Tuesday.

🗳️ Cast your vote → today.com

If you've never been to the Parker County Peach Festival, this is your year. And if you have been — you already know what I'm about to say.

The 41st Annual Parker County Peach Festival hits Historic Downtown Weatherford on Saturday, July 11, 2026, from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. It is one of the best single-day events in Texas — over 50,000 people show up every year to fill the streets around the Parker County Courthouse, and for good reason. Two entertainment stages, 200+ vendors, kids' areas, a bike ride called the Peach Pedal, a domino tournament, and more peach food than you can reasonably consume in one afternoon: cobblers, pies, jams, ice cream, smoothies — all made with locally grown Parker County peaches.

The festival was honored with the "Best in Texas Overall Award" at the 2025 Texas Festivals & Events Association Marketing Awards, and a Pinnacle Award from the International Festival and Events Association the year before. It's not just big — it's legitimately excellent.

Now here's my hot take: volunteer. I've both attended and volunteered at this festival, and volunteering is genuinely more fun. You're in the middle of everything, you meet incredible people from all over the region, and you get the satisfaction of being part of what makes it work. Call the Weatherford Chamber of Commerce and ask how to get involved. You won't regret it.

Parking is free, school buses run from parking areas to the festival, and it starts at 8 a.m. — go early before the Texas sun reminds you what June is.

🍑 Full details → parkercountypeachfestival.org

The Fort Worth City Council unanimously adopted the Master Transportation Plan (MTP) on June 9, and I want to talk about why this matters more than a dry government headline might suggest.

Fort Worth is the 11th largest city in the country and one of the fastest-growing. The city's own transportation planners have been direct about what happens if nothing changes: by 2036, travel times could more than double, and close to 70% of Fort Worth roadways would be delivering a poor level of service. That is not a good trajectory for a city adding residents faster than almost anywhere else in America.

The MTP took two years to develop, involved extensive public outreach, and pulls all of the city's transportation plans and policies into one unified document for the first time. It sets out priorities on a 4-year, 10-year, and 25-year horizon — so there's actual accountability built into it, not just a wish list. The first four-year phase, funded in part by the 2026 bond program, includes meaningful projects like widening Bonds Ranch Road to four lanes and connecting currently unlinked segments of East Bailey Boswell Road on the west side.

Regional partners like Tarrant County and Trinity Metro showed up at the council meeting to publicly commit to collaboration on the plan. That kind of regional buy-in is what separates plans that actually get built from ones that gather dust.

I love to see communities investing in themselves and making strategic, intentional plans for improvement. We should do it as institutions, as businesses, as families, and as individuals. A city that looks 25 years ahead and builds toward something is a city worth living in.

🗺️ Read more → fortworthtexas.gov

The City of Fort Worth approved $860,000 to install retractable traffic bollards along East Exchange Avenue in the Stockyards — running from North Houston Street to Packers Avenue — and the reaction has been... interesting.

A rap video surfaced online pushing back on the bollards, and I want to be clear: it's actually good. It's thoughtful, it's well-produced, and it raises a real question that Fort Worth probably needs to wrestle with: What do we want the culture of the Stockyards to be — and do we even get to choose, or does it just happen organically?

The video expresses a desire to cruise Exchange Street with loud bass and a revving exhaust, and argues that if you don't like it, that's the culture of the 817 and you can leave. I understand that sentiment. And I won't pretend that cruising culture hasn't been a real part of the Stockyards scene.

But here's where I land: the city's stated reason for the bollards is pedestrian safety, and that's a genuinely hard argument to push back on. East Exchange Avenue draws enormous crowds — daily cattle drives, live music, weekend nightlife. The bollards are retractable, which means the city can make the entire street pedestrian-only during peak events. That's actually a smart design. It's not a permanent ban on vehicle culture; it's a tool that prioritizes people on foot when the street is at its most packed.

I went through something similar at my university. One day you could drive through campus. The next, you couldn't — ever again. At first? Frustrating. But people were getting hit by vehicles as the campus grew, and eventually the pedestrian-only zones became one of the best things about the place. The culture adapted.

The Stockyards will adapt too. The question isn't really about bass volume — it's about whose experience of a public space gets to be the default. That's worth a real conversation, and I'm glad the rap video started it.

🔗 Music video → youtube.com/shorts/u9vuQ8qw8qY
📰 Bollard coverage → nbcdfw.com

Fixe Southern House at Clearfork is closed. If you drove by and noticed the locked doors, now you know.

I reached out to someone close to the restaurant when the news broke, and what they told me was hard to read: "They didn't tell the staff. Everyone showed up and the locks were changed with a sign on the door. Many good people without income they rely on. The whole staff of that restaurant, some had been there since day one — 8 years — were blindsided and now deserve some appreciation for how awesome they made that place, who are now jobless with families relying on that income."

I reached out to the Austin office for comment. Keith responded: "We are sad to have our time in Fort Worth come to an end. While we were blessed with an amazing team and countless loyal guests, we will not be searching for a new location in Fort Worth. In the meantime, we look forward to seeing any of our guests who may make the trip to Austin to visit."

When I followed up asking about the staff being unaware of the closure — and what the main reason for closing was — Keith replied: "I don't have any further information for you but we hope to see you in Austin sometime. Thank you, Josh."

Make of that what you will.

Fixe opened at Clearfork in 2018 and was genuinely excellent — Southern comfort food done with real care, a great bar, and a team that clearly took pride in the place. Eight years is a long run in the Fort Worth restaurant scene, and the people who built that place deserved better than a locked door on a workday.

If you've got a favorite server or cook who was part of that crew, show some love. Leave them a LinkedIn recommendation, tip them off to openings, or just send a message. The hospitality industry runs on people, and those people are out there right now figuring out their next move.

📍 More on Fixe's history → fwtx.com

If your homeowner's insurance renewal landed in your mailbox recently and made you do a double-take, you're not imagining things.

Texas now ranks among the top five most expensive states in the country for home insurance rates, with premiums having surged roughly 56% since 2020. The average Fort Worth homeowner is paying around $5,335 per year for $300,000 of dwelling coverage — compared to a national average closer to $1,900. That's not a rounding error. That's a second car payment.

The reasons are real and compounding: the state's population has exploded, meaning more homes to insure and more infrastructure under pressure. Severe weather events are more frequent and more damaging, which drives up insurer payouts. And when payouts go up, so do premiums. Layer in the post-pandemic spike in labor costs and building materials — the stuff that actually has to get repaired or replaced after a storm — and you've got what can only be called a perfect storm of cost pressure landing on Texas homeowners all at once.

Here's what I'd recommend, and I genuinely mean this: find a local insurance professional. Someone who lives and works near you. Your local Chamber of Commerce directory probably has several. Call them all. Make friends. There is nothing better than having a trusted professional you can pick up the phone and call when something goes sideways — because when you need insurance, it usually means something already went sideways.

And here's the bonus: when you build those relationships, you can also refer people. Your neighbor needs an insurance agent, you know exactly who to send them to. That's a win for them, a win for your local professional, and a win for your community. That's how a neighborhood actually works.

How did an article about expensive insurance turn into a community networking pep talk? I have no idea. Go call your local agent.

📰 Read more → wfaa.com

🤠 Fort Worth earned the nickname "Cowtown" because it was the last major stop on the Chisholm Trail before cattle drives headed north to Kansas railheads — over 4 million cattle passed through between 1866 and 1890.

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." — Theodore Roosevelt

That's the week in Fort Worth. As always, if you have questions about the market, want a free home value estimate, or just want to know what's happening in your neighborhood — I'm one reply away.

See you next week,

Josh Harville
Real Estate Professional | Fathom Realty, LLC | SA-0682306 Westoplex Region: Fort Worth · Aledo · Weatherford · Benbrook & surrounding communities
📞 817-917-8923
✉️ [email protected]
🌐 http://joshuaharville.fathomrealty.com/
Instagram: @Westoplex_Harville
Facebook: Josh Harville - Realtor - Fathom Realty

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