• KERA radio report by BJ Austin:

Fort Worth will bring in the experts soon to talk about repairing and restoring Heritage Plaza. The park was named one of the state’s most endangered historic sites this week.

The plaza is 112 acres downtown, next to the Tarrant County Courthouse. It’s on the bluff overlooking the point where two forks of the Trinity River converge. It’s said to be the very birthplace of Fort Worth.

But it’s been neglected, has structural issues that make it unsafe, and is closed.  Fort Worth Assistant City Manager Fernando Costa says Heritage Plaza is considered one of the finest examples of modernist landscape design in the U.S.  Costa says it has an important future as part of the large Trinity Uptown project. 

COSTA: “… which will create a new urban lake right at the confluence of those two stream corridors.  So, historic preservation and contemporary needs are twin goals that we’re seeking to achieve.”

To do that, Costa says they’re calling together a design workshop of experts this spring. He says initial cost estimates run six to seven million dollars. Where they’ll get that money is uncertain.