FORT WORTH, Texas — It’s the dream Johnny Lewis’ late wife Shirley laid out more than 20 years ago.
“She wanted this to be brought back alive again. Mixed development, that was our plan," Lewis said.
They wanted to revitalize Fort Worth’s Historic Southside at Evans and Rosedale. The area was once a thriving Black community full of businesses, restaurants and entertainment, but it declined in the 1970s. In the early 2000s a nostalgic Shirley began pushing for a facelift.
“There was no thoughts of redevelopment until she brought those words to the community,” Lewis said.
They created renderings of plans for the land and worked with the city and a firm to do a study of the area. Lewis still has them at his house.
In April, Fort Worth ended its contract with the project's developer, Hoque Global, after it failed to meet several deadlines and faced "unacceptable delays," the city said in a statement to WFAA.
But two decades and many failed attempts to secure a developer later, Evans and Rosedale is still mostly bare, aside from the library.
“To me it hurt, to her it was devastating,” Lewis said.
Shirley passed from ALS six years ago and Lewis let go of the vision, until a new developer hired over the summer promised to finally build the area up.
“We have selected the royal capital group to come from Milwaukee to come and do this massive development,” said Fort Worth Councilman Chris Nettles.
Nettles says Royal Capital is committed to including the community in its plans. Wednesday they hosted their first fireside chat, catered and held at the Ella Mae Shambles Library on Evans, where the community could come and talk directly with them about the project.
“We had got some preliminary things that we did not get the first time to kind of make sure that this process doesn't fall through,” Nettles said.
Lewis says he’s skeptical, but optimistic and ready to hear what Royal has to say and only wishes Shirley was still here to see it through.
“I know she’s smiling from heaven saying, hey, somebody's still fighting, somebody's getting things done,” Lewis said. “Like she always said, we can do it.”
The Historic Southside is also the future home of the proposed Juneteenth Museum.