Fort Worth had scored big time.
A $1.3 billion computer chip plant near Alliance Airport looked to be the biggest economic development coup since 1942 when the city landed what eventually became Lockheed and the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base, bringing with it jobs, government funding and prosperity.
This is part of the Report’s special 1 Million & Counting growth series, which will be published on Mondays into October. The reporting will lead to a growth summit Oct. 23 at the downtown Tarrant County College Trinity River Campus.
The 1996 deal with Intel Corp. promised jobs requiring technology skills — with as many as 1,200 workers earning a then-healthy average annual salary of $35,000 — helping transition Fort Worth out of its energy, defense and ranching roots into the flashy age of computing with bytes.
But, to use a Cowtown phrase, it was all hat and no cattle as the booming technology industry went bust.
Fort Worth leaders may not have seen it clearly then, but the city’s economic sextant had set its true course for the future in 1988. That was when it made a unique and controversial deal to set up a public-private partnership to develop the 27,000-acre mixed-use Alliance project, which includes Perot Field Fort Worth Alliance Airport.
“The Intel deal made us look north,” said Charlie Powell, president of the Fort Worth market for Ciera Bank, a longtime banker in the area and community leader. “Alliance was already set up, but we hadn’t clearly seen it for what it was. The Intel deal made us really aware of the opportunity we had.”
The deal’s collapse also made city leaders all too aware of where Fort Worth fell short — a strong talent pipeline, transportation and water — and what the city needed when the next Intel deal came along.
It was clear that the “to-do” list was long, Powell said.
“One of the things Intel wanted was an educated workforce,” he said. “It showed us what we needed to be doing, and now I think everybody’s focused on workforce.”
As the city reached the 1 million residents threshold, it was also — through the first three quarters of fiscal year 2025 — announcing project commitments totaling more than $6.2 billion in new capital investment and more than 4,000 new and retained jobs. It was Fort Worth’s strongest year in more than a decade, some nine years after an Economic Development Strategic Plan report found the city lacked a comprehensive, aggressive economic development program.
In the years since that report, the city:
- Saw an impressive increase in higher education assets, including a new medical school from TCU and a growing downtown presence from Texas A&M University, both promising innovation and business connections to develop the talent needed for the future.
- Revamped its economic development programs.
- Took steps to market the city’s assets to the rest of the world.
Recent economic development wins, such as the Wistron supercomputing manufacturing plant and the MP Materials magnet manufacturer, indicate Fort Worth has made up ground since the Intel deal collapsed, said former Mayor Mike Moncrief.
“You don’t get to be a city with a million people by accident,” Moncrief said.
Building a talent pipeline
Different storefronts line a section of retail space at Alliance in Fort Worth on Sept. 4, 2025. (Maria Crane | Fort Worth Report/CatchLight Local/Report for America)
Workforce was key nearly 30 years ago and is even more important now, said Mike Berry, president of Hillwood, the real estate company in charge of developing Alliance.
“The No. 1 question from companies looking to locate here is labor,” he said. “No. 2 is labor, and No. 3 is labor.”
Incentives are still important, Berry said, and some deals remain incentive driven, but workforce and talent remain key.
Partnerships with Tarrant County College and other schools have been key to landing a broad array of industries at Alliance — from aviation to technology firms to the film industry.
For example, producer Taylor Sheridan’s SGS Studios, which is building a 450,000-square-foot film and television production campus in the Alliance area, is already working with TCC on related training programs, Berry said. The community college already offers courses related to aviation, transportation and software technology out of a training center in Alliance.
“That education, training, has become a huge part of what we’re doing,” Berry said.
Meanwhile, Texas A&M’s growing downtown campus, the expansion of Tarleton State, UT Arlington’s push into west Fort Worth and TCU’s growth are other key factors in preparing the area for future economic development, Powell said.
A steel beam is lifted by crane April 18, 2023, at the Burnett School of Medicine at TCU. (File photo | Fort Worth Report)
Texas A&M-Fort Worth, for example, aims to partner with industries on workforce, innovation and research. TCU’s Burnett School of Medicine is poised to create an estimated 31,200 jobs and have an annual economic impact of $4 billion by 2030 as well as provide more doctors for the growing city.
But there are other areas where Fort Worth is working to catch up, Powell said.
“Transportation — getting people from point A to point B — was a problem then, in 1996, and it’s still a problem now,” he said. “We’re working on it, but it doesn’t get any easier.”
Some hope could be on the horizon. Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare said during his State of the County address that the Texas Department of Transportation plans to unveil a master plan for the Fort Worth area that could spur economic development.
“In addition to eliminating gridlock, making access easier for our people, it will also be a huge, huge boon for economic development,” he said, speaking at the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce event on Aug. 21. “You’re going to start seeing that happen.”
Moncrief cited the poor performance of the city’s school district, which could soon see a state takeover because of failing academic accountability standards as another area where Fort Worth could use improvement.
Fort Worth Top 5 Employment by Industry
Manufacturing 14.2%
Real Estate, rent/lease 13.3%
Professional Services 11.1%
Health Care 7.9%
Retail Trade 7.5%
Source: City of Fort Worth Economic Development Department
“With the state of Texas staring down at Fort Worth ISD and considering putting the district under receivership, this is not attractive to new businesses considering Fort Worth to be their new home,” he said.
Kelly Decker, a local attorney with three students in Fort Worth ISD schools, believes business leaders will use the state takeover as a way to tell prospective companies that “at least we’re doing something about the public schools.”
“That’s the way they’ll spin it, I think,” she said.
From crash to takeoff
The roots of Fort Worth’s new economic fortunes grew from the rubble of the late 1980s real estate market bust.
It was a cratering of Texas-sized proportions, but it made land cheap to buy — and that’s exactly what Ross Perot Jr. did. The Dallas businessman eventually amassed 27,000 acres of land in far north Fort Worth, much of it outside of city limits at the time.
In 1989, the city partnered with Perot’s Hillwood Development Co. and the Federal Aviation Administration to open the world’s first industrial airport, now known as Perot Field Fort Worth Alliance Airport.
The AllianceTexas development grew around the airport to include BNSF Railway’s Alliance Intermodal Facility, a FedEx hub and Amazon Air’s regional hub among its 500-plus companies that call the area home.
Like many major developments in the city’s history — from the railroads coming to town to the “bomber plant” to the Alliance project — it was a deal built on the sometimes uneasy marriage of politics, business, money and Cowtown chutzpah that has long-fueled Fort Worth’s economic success.
That potent combination has seen AllianceTexas generate $10.2 billion in regional economic impact as of 2024 and make the area home to about 70,000 workers, according to Hillwood’s latest economic impact report from March.
While the Alliance development continues to grow — more than one-third of its acreage is still available for expansion — the city is looking west to Walsh and Veale Ranch for more growth and other big projects.
Unlike the Alliance development, Walsh, at 7,200 acres, and Veale Ranch, at 5,200 acres, do not have one developer in control of most of the acreage.
The area is seen as a potential megasite for a large corporate relocation.
It was under consideration for the Rivian electric vehicle plant in 2021. That project went to an area outside of Atlanta. Water supply issues were one factor in the reason for Rivian deciding against Fort Worth, city leaders said at the time.
Water, water isn’t everywhere
As Fort Worth grew, the city opened a new water treatment plant at Eagle Mountain Lake. But local water sources aren’t enough to keep up with growth, officials said.
The nonprofit Texas 2036 estimates that the state risks losing about 785,000 jobs and about $165 billion in gross domestic product by the end of 2050 because of water scarcity.
“Texas needs to do more. We need the Marvin Nichols Reservoir,” said Berry, referring to the controversial northeast Texas water project Tarrant County officials hope could eventually supply water to millions of residents.
Texas lawmakers passed a measure going before voters in November aimed at addressing long-term water needs with about $20 billion for projects over the next two decades. A newly created Texas Water Fund Advisory Committee would oversee the funds and is tasked with projecting aquifers and local control over surface water rights.
“You don’t have any place to grow if your water demands exceed your ability to meet those demands,” Moncrief said.
Growth is here, prosperity lags behind for some sectors
That western edge of Fort Worth, much of it in Parker County, will be important in attracting new companies to the city, said Fort Worth City Council member Michael Crain, who represents the area in District 3. While transit projects are ongoing in the area, he has been pushing for more.
“The growth is not just coming. It’s here,” he said.
One key to the city’s economic development fortunes has been an overhaul of its economic development structure. Key to that was the formation of the Economic Development Partnership in 2023 carved out of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce to be a separate entity with a focus on recruiting business to the city.
That was a key change, said Berry, and was the start of the city, the development community and the Economic Development Partnership working together to bring new projects to the city.
“The community is really starting to work more in sync than we were before,” he said. “It’s all about customer service, and it’s all about giving a company that’s considering Fort Worth a seamless experience when they come here. And I think that’s the thing that has changed that I’ve seen.”
Fort Worth leaders had been working to improve economic development efforts since 2017, when a report from consulting firm TIP Strategies cited several shortcomings in the city’s economic development efforts. An updated report in 2022.
While the areas north and west of Fort Worth represent the growth that comes from so-called “greenfield” developments where there are large open swaths of land available, the city also has plenty of room to develop and redevelop closer to its core, such as in the east and southeast.
“It will happen,” said Powell, who chaired the JPS Health Network board, for several years. “You’re starting to see it, but it will happen.”
Powell pointed to the Rosedale Renaissance, a $6.7 million project to revitalize the Texas Wesleyan University campus and the nearby Polytechnic neighborhood, as one example.
“You look at how that has changed and continues to change things on the east side of Rosedale,” he said.
The key to that infill development is to get the neighborhoods on board, he said.
“But when you’ve got as much land on the east side, that has the ingress and egress to all the freeways and connections to Fort Worth, I see it developing. I don’t think you can stop it.”
Businesses in the area seem to struggle even with signs of prosperity nearby, said Rachel Durant, co-owner of Forget Me Not Pictures, which leases space in the Near Southside area. She and her husband founded a nonprofit organization, Brave/R Together, that also has a business academy to support startups and entrepreneurs in the area.
“We were able to incorporate and make connections throughout the city and I don’t know if we could have done that on our own,” she said. “That support was key.”
New data have started to back up Fort Worth’s claims of economic success over the past few years. A new study from real estate listing service CoworkingCafe ranks Fort Worth fifth best for economic growth among large American cities. The study gives the city particularly strong marks in education and international trade.
The Fort Worth Economic Development Partnership, at only 2 years old, was earlier this year chosen by Site Selection Magazine as the recipient of the 2025 Mac Conway Award for Excellence in Economic Development, the most prestigious award given to economic development organizations. The Fort Worth partnership is one of 20 economic development organizations across the country to win the award.
Moncrief says the city retains its small-town feel despite the growth. Keeping that feel, along with the historical aspects of the city are key to maintaining Fort Worth’s unique place among large cities, he said. “That makes us attractive to companies wanting to do business here,” Moncrief said.
“We take care of the small things, too,” he said. “All the mayors I’ve known have done that, and I did too. That sets us apart. We take care of the small things and the big things too.”
Bob Francis is business editor for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at bob.francis@fortworthreport.org.
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