KWA Construction, the general contractor for planned affordable housing on the old Masonic Home grounds in Southeast Fort Worth, has completed construction on Phase I of the Renaissance Heights Apartments in the Columbia Renaissance Square Development.
The nearly $17 million, three-story mixed-income apartment community introduces a residential element to a project that seeks to bridge the poverty gap by putting education centers, health care facilities and green spaces in close proximity to low-income residents, KWA said in a news release. Owner Columbia Residential hired JHP Architecture to design the 193,000-square foot project.
“We share Columbia Residential’s commitment to quality construction, sustainable materials and energy efficiency,” said KWA Construction President Brian Webster. “This development not only provides residents with safe and excellent living conditions, but it also helps reduce financial stress with the use of energy efficient features to lower utility costs.”
Renaissance Square, the highly successful shopping mall development at the intersection of Berry Street and U.S. 287, brought shopping and fresh food supplies to an area of Fort Worth long considered to be a food desert when it opened.
The Shoppes at Renaissance Square is a multi-phase retail development of more than a half million square feet on 67 acres and is praised as a catalyst for economic development in the area. The overall plan by developer Happy Baggett and his partners always visualize a residential component.
Phase I of Renaissance Heights consists of 140 one-, two- and three-bedroom mixed-income units, 85 percent of which are affordable housing. The apartments feature ENERGY STAR® appliances, open floor plans and luxury, hardwood-style flooring. Additional amenities include a clubhouse with a community room, computer lab and fitness center, the KWA Construction release said.
That area of Fort Worth had been plagued for years by deteriorated apartments, and residents were highly skeptical of even more apartment housing. But Baggett and his partners met multiple times with members of the community so they would not oppose zoning changes to allow apartment construction.
The second and third phases of the development will include independent senior living apartments and mixed-income apartments, KWA said.
Baggett told the Fort Worth Business Press’ CEO magazine in an interview early in the development that the population in the area increases about 15 percent on Sundays, which he interpreted as people who grew up there and living somewhere else returning to the area for church services. He was convinced that they might move back to the area if they had an option comparable to high-quality apartments in the rest of Fort Worth.
“I talked with a lot of young professionals when we talked about spending the minimum of around $100,000 per unit with all of the amenities you’d have in any other really nice multifamily community in the Metroplex,” said Carl Pointer, a resident of nearby Rolling Hills neighborhood and a leader in the neighborhood alliance United Communities Association of South Fort Worth, said for the 2015 CEO story. “A lot of the younger folk were excited. But they want to get the best bang for their buck like everybody else.”
Baggett said then that the best way to break the cycle of poverty is to stop concentrating on poverty.
“Provide Class A housing stock that will attract market-rate tenants and put voucher tenants in a development that they would never hope to live in. Seeing a way out is the greatest hope you can give someone,” he said. Plans called for 27 acres dedicated to apartments, about four acres of senior housing, about 14 acres of townhomes and 19 acres for single-family housing.
KWA Construction is a Dallas-Âbased construction firm specializing in multifamily developments.
Columbia Residential, founded in 1991, is an integrated real estate firm that provides master planning, development, construction management, property and asset management and tax credit compliance with a focus on mixed-finance, affordable rental communities. It is based in Atlanta.
This story includes material from Business Press Archives.