Hey Westoplexians,
It's Halloween week, and fittingly, most of this edition is about things that won't stay buried. A drive-in that might rise again. A festival going down for a long nap. Fresh dirt turning over on the far west side. And a real estate stat about living next to a cemetery that I didn't expect to agree with.
Here's what caught my eye this week.
-josh
🎞️ The Coyote Drive-In Might Not Be Done With Us
When the Coyote Drive-In showed its last movie on Labor Day, it felt final. Fourteen years of double features under the downtown skyline, gone so Panther Island could dig its canals and build a park.
Now Chron is reporting it may not be dead after all. According to a post they cite, a relocation is being talked about, and Fort Worth or somewhere close by is the likely landing spot. Nothing official yet. No site, no date.
But I'll say it: there's a lot of open dirt between here and Aledo. Maybe a drive-in belongs out here now.
Fourteen years is a hard act to follow. I'd still show up for the sequel.
🎨 ArtsGoggle Took Its Bow - See You in 2028, Maybe
If you were on Magnolia Saturday, you saw the last ArtsGoggle for a while.
The city is replacing old cast-iron water pipes under Magnolia and six other Near Southside streets, and that work starts next spring. The current plan leaves room for the festival to come back in October 2028, but nobody has committed to it yet.
Here's the part I respect. Instead of squeezing the festival onto another street, Near Southside Inc. plans to put that money toward helping the small businesses that'll be stuck behind orange barrels. Third Thursdays and Lost 'N Sound are still on.
New pipes aren't fun. Fewer water main breaks are.
So go eat on Magnolia next year. Those shops will need us more than the festival does. And while the construction may be inconvenient for a little bit - the gain of new reliable infrastructure should more than make up for it in the long run.
🏭 Walsh Just Landed a Million-Square-Foot Neighbor
For years, Walsh has meant rooftops. Now it's getting a workplace.
Nashville-based Hamilton Development is building a $57.7 million warehouse in Walsh, south of I-20. It's roughly 1 million square feet on 60 acres, the first of two buildings planned for what's being called Walsh Industrial. It's already leased.
To who? Nobody's saying. Somebody signed for a building the size of about 17 football fields and kept it quiet. Totally normal.
Walsh says this industrial park could eventually top 20 million square feet. That's a lot of jobs on the west side of the county line.
Plenty of folks in Aledo and Weatherford drive east every single morning. Maybe a few of them won't have to.
🥛 A Dairy, a Police Gym, and a Good Sign for Las Vegas Trail
A vacant lot at 7950 Calmont Ave. broke ground last week, and what's going there is a little unexpected.
Half of it becomes a distribution facility for Adams County Dairies. The other half is a gym for Fort Worth police and the Police Activities League, the program that pairs officers with neighborhood kids.
Meanwhile, state filings show TxDOT getting ready to widen North Las Vegas Trail from two lanes to four, with sidewalks, between Quebec Drive and Loop 820.
A milk warehouse isn't glamorous. A gym where kids shoot hoops with cops on a Tuesday night is something else.
Turning a neighborhood around rarely comes as one big announcement. It comes like this. One empty lot at a time.
🎃 Homeowner Tip: Walk Your Porch Like a Trick-or-Treater
Saturday night, a lot of little feet are coming up your walkway in the dark. Masks block their view. Capes catch on things. So take ten minutes this week and walk your own path like a kid in a costume would.
Light it up. Porch light, walkway lights, all of it. Swap that dead bulb now, not at 6:45 Saturday.
Clear the trip hazards. Hoses, extension cords for the inflatables, and the pumpkin sitting on the top step.
Check the sidewalk. Our clay soil shifts after a dry summer and a wet fall. A slab edge that lifted half an inch is easy to miss at night.
Go flameless. Battery candles in the jack-o'-lanterns. Real flames and flowing costumes don't mix.
Give the dog a break. A back room beats a doorbell every two minutes.
Anyway, a fall on your front steps is the scariest thing that can happen at your door Saturday. Well, that and running out of candy by 7pm.
🪦 Would You Buy Next to a Cemetery? Hear Me Out
Realtor.com picked the right week for this one. Homes next to cemeteries tend to take longer to sell, but they rarely get a price cut for it.
The reason is simple. Fewer buyers want them, so the house without the headstones usually goes first. But the ones who do buy tend to love it.
And think about what you get. The quietest neighbors in town. A view nobody's ever going to build on. Around here, where it feels like every open field grows a subdivision overnight, that's not nothing.
Here's where I land: if the house is right, the view out back is the least scary thing about it.
Now a surprise HOA assessment? That's scary.
📸 Before You Go: The Photo That Came Back to Haunt Them
In the fall of 1900, five members of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch were laying low in Hell's Half Acre, Fort Worth's old saloon-and-gambling district near where Sundance Square sits today.
On November 21, they put on suits and derby hats and sat for a portrait at John Swartz's studio, upstairs at 705½ Main Street. Swartz liked it enough to put it on display.
A Fort Worth detective walked in, recognized a face or two, and the photo ended up with the Pinkertons. It became a wanted poster. The five never rode together again.
History calls it the Fort Worth Five. The Pinkertons called it the bad luck photo.
Happy Halloween, y'all. Be careful what you leave in the window.
Fun fact for the week: downtown's Sundance Square gets its name from the outlaw hideout days of Fort Worth's old "Hell's Half Acre" - the Sundance Kid himself reportedly hid out in the neighborhood that's now some of the most valuable real estate in Texas. Just a reminder that this city's always been busy rewriting itself, one block at a time.
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
📍 Not subscribed yet? Forward this to a friend who loves Fort Worth - they can sign up at westoplexharville.com