ROOT FOR THE HOME TEAM

The university – which brought football back in 2017 – has been in forward motion for more than a decade with a revitalized Rosedale Street, new clock tower, business accelerator, art gallery, community counseling center, the Central Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church, the Martin University Center, and The Rosedale student housing development.

Those are just a few of the major plays the university made in the last few years that transformed its Polytechnic Heights home into a hub for critical thinking and inquiry in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. Now the university is planning to build a home to support its long tradition of sports excellence. An athletics stadium, yes, but like the university it serves, one that is smaller and smarter – a hub for teamwork and cooperation that rubs shoulders with its neighbors in inclusion, and access. A common ground for community excellence.

Ricky Dotson, athletic director, says leveraging the university’s collective athletics power will echo far beyond the bleachers – this is an activation project.

“When we build an athletics facility on campus,” Dotson said, “it allows alums to return to campus for games. It aids economic development as games draw more people to this area. And all those things aid in retention as well. There’s a lot of benefit to this vision.”

Here’s a look at a new vision coming into sharp focus.

What makes Texas Wesleyan’s athletic tradition even more impressive is knowing that Texas Wesleyan student-athletes built it without the comprehensive facilities that other peer institutions have. Now the tradition they created will finally have a home as big as their legacy. The site – at the west end of campus, between Binkley Street and Nashville Avenue – will create enough space not only for the $2.5 million practice field, but a future stadium. This north-south facing dirt field currently on the site will be properly graded and drained, replaced with a synthetic turf, and its sidewalks will be repaved. Lighting will be installed for early and late practices and for the future stadium. A 10% maintenance endowment will also be secured to ensure it continues to serve student-athletes and their love of the game.

Both track and field and cross country saw their reputations grow in the last decade – and these student-athletes have been a familiar sight across the Southeast Fort Worth neighborhood and beyond as they ran and trained with limited specialized training spaces on campus. This new facility will provide a new home – and it will include stateof-the-art track-and-field training equipment. The track will also be accessible to the community through leasing for track meets, Fort Worth ISD events and others, which is expected to generate income to sustain the athletics program. Much like the Martin University Center created a hub for students, visitors and educators, the new facility will do the same. It will bring the Texas Wesleyan community together to support our studentathletes and celebrate their achievements.

These initial two phases will lay the foundation for the third phase – an outdoor athletics facility that has been much needed on campus. It’s important that the details serve the needs of the Texas Wesleyan community, so plans are still in development, but initial drafts suggest a 3,000- to 5,000-seat stadium with field house, press box, restrooms and concessions. The completed stadium will give shape to an important city block located just off bustling East Rosedale Street – it will also cap a remarkable time in Texas Wesleyan’s growth as an important institution in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. The idea of cheering on the Rams in their own home stadium is enough to make a Texas Wesleyan graduate’s eyes well up with tears.

Just 10 years ago, East Rosedale Street was a different place.

Signs dotted the strip across from campus, but the restaurants had been closed for decades. Cars barreled down the ’70s-style infrastructure with their windows rolled up and their doors locked. Every blighted building whispered of better days in Polytechnic Heights.

Ten years later and a renaissance is in full swing – and visible to all.

The Rosedale Renaissance, which began in 2013, was the first major effort in 40 years to address the declining infrastructure in Polytechnic Heights along Rosedale Street. Texas Wesleyan raised $6.75 million to create a new entryway to the campus on Rosedale Street, which included a clock tower, reflecting pool and promenade-style sidewalks; a new home for the Central Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church across the street from campus; the Jack Morton Business Accelerator; the Texas Wesleyan University Community Counseling Center; and renovating the old Polytechnic Firehouse into the university’s new Bernice Coulter Templeton Art Studio. An additional $32 million in street improvements has been provided by city and state funds to dramatically renovate the streetscape from Interstate 35 to Texas Highway 820, through the heart of 76105.

More than $78 million has been invested in the area in street improvements, the Rosedale Renaissance, the Martin University Center, and storefront renovations. There is a new student housing development in the 3200 block, the area that already boasts an art studio, a performance hall, a ballroom, and a coffee shop. Through a $572,299 forgivable loan from the City of Fort Worth, three storefronts along the 3000 block of East Rosedale Street have been renovated for lease by area businesses.

The potential impact of adding a stadium in the 2900 block of East Rosedale Street is huge to the neighborhood. This project is a game-

› Street improvements ($32 million) › Campus entrance and clock tower

› Art studio

› Business accelerator

› Community counseling center › Central Texas Conference of the

United Methodist Church ($6.75 million) › Urban Development Action Grant ($572,299), 3000 block of

East Rosedale Street

› Nick and Lou Martin

University Center ($20 million) › The Rosedale student housing development ($10.5 million)

changer that unites the community and connects them to the vision of the Rosedale Renaissance. Combined with the new student housing development, The Rosedale, the result will be a revitalized community for Polytechnic Heights.

There is no real success without overcoming challenges, and the challenges in Southeast Fort Worth are real. Texas Wesleyan University is in 76105, the eighth poorest zip code in Texas according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The average adjusted gross income for 76105 is $24,250 and unemployment is 13.5%, which is higher than the current county unemployment level of 4.2%, higher than the current state unemployment of 13.0%, and higher than the current national unemployment rate of 13.3%. All the public schools within 76105 have Title I status and 87.3% of students are eligible to participate in free or reduced lunch programs.

Opening summer 2022, The Rosedale is an apartment-style residence hall that houses 101 students.

Texas Wesleyan home games frequently generate crowds of 1,000 to 2,000 people and are some of the largest events the university hosts all year – but they don’t even bring people to campus. A new stadium would change that. The stadium creates a bridge between Fort Worth ISD and Texas Wesleyan. There is not a certified regulation track within Fort Worth ISD, so if the new stadium contains a certified track, that will not only benefit the school district but could potentially bring many high school track meets to campus.

Beyond providing a new home for Texas Wesleyan football, men’s and women’s soccer, and track and field, it also opens opportunities for expansion of athletics programs at Texas Wesleyan and provides a space for intramural programs on campus. The current intramural program uses a grassy area near the dormitories to host outdoor programs, but the space is not large enough for sports like soccer, flag football or ultimate frisbee. “We’ve had to redefine what intramurals are since we don’t have a facility,” says Dennis Hall, vice president of student affairs, which is why the current intramural program includes things like video game tournaments.

The next development on the Rosedale side of campus is a partnership with Texas Wesleyan, Panteras Development Partners, and owner-operator Miyama USA Texas, which will result in a new on-campus student housing community called The Rosedale, which will serve more than 100 students starting in the fall of 2022. The Rosedale will feature one- and twobedroom apartments on the south side of Rosedale, less than a minute from the heart of campus.

A new vision of Southeast Fort Worth is plain to see – East Rosedale Street is an entertainment destination that includes the ballroom at the Martin University Center, the Templeton Art Studio, Theatre Wesleyan, and performances at Martin Hall in the evenings and thousands of stadiumgoing visitors on weekends. That commitment to the neighborhood creates an integrated network of projects that spurs further economic development.

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