The Fort Worth Urban Design Commission on July 16<\/a> approved a series of waivers from design codes for a two-story retail and dining building near TCU, while rejecting requests involving commercial signage on Camp Bowie Boulevard and tree removal along White Settlement Road.<\/p>\n The commission unanimously approved the TCU-backed proposal at 2950 W. Berry St., part of the larger privately-owned Morado on Berry<\/a> mixed-use development under construction. The project includes roughly 25,000 square feet of retail space intended to serve as an extension of the university district, and will feature restaurants, street-level amenities and pedestrian connections near the TCU bookstore. Commission Chair Shane Benner, a commercial real estate professional and adjunct professor of finance at TCU, recused himself.<\/p>\n The project required three waivers from the Berry\/University Form-Based Code, including exceptions to requirements governing enclosed occupiable space and building placement.<\/p>\n City staff said the design in fact advances the code’s goals of promoting walkability and high-quality urban design. Renderings presented to the commission showed a partially open second-story dining area,13-foot-tall ground-floor windows facing Berry Street and extensive landscaping along Berry and Cockrell Avenue.\u00a0<\/p>\n Commissioners praised the proposal. Member Steven Halliday commended the development team for \u201cusing the ordinance against itself\u201d to produce an innovative design. The commission approved the request 6-0.<\/p>\n Too many signs on Camp Bowie<\/strong><\/p>\n The commission took a different view of Fifth Third Bank’s request for additional signage at 6388 Camp Bowie Blvd. The bank sought permission to install four wall-mounted signs, even though the Camp Bowie District\u2019s current design guidelines generally permit only one sign per street-facing facade.<\/p>\n The standards are intended to reduce visual clutter and reinforce the corridor’s pedestrian-oriented character.<\/p>\n City staff members instead recommended allowing two wall signs for the bank \u2014 one facing Camp Bowie and another facing Hilldale Road \u2014 in addition to the bank’s existing monument sign, a freestanding sign near the street. Marie Byrum of Byrum Sign & Lighting, who was a co-applicant with the bank for the waivers, argued before the commission that mature tree canopies make the building difficult to see from the street and pointed to nearby businesses with more extensive signage.<\/p>\n Lydia Guajardo Rickard, executive director of Camp Bowie District, spoke in opposition to the request, contending that the corridor is already oversigned and that the applicant’s proposal conflicted with both current regulations and the district’s long-term vision. Commissioners unanimously adopted the staff recommendation.<\/p>\n Fort Worth Urban Design Commission<\/p>\n Documenter:<\/strong> Lou Chapman<\/p>\n Date<\/strong>: July 16, 2026<\/p>\n Learn more about this meeting by clicking here<\/a>. For the agenda, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Magnolia Avenue sign dispute<\/strong><\/p>\n At 600 W. Magnolia Ave., commissioners sided with staff in a dispute over the placement of a new wall sign. Dancescape, a dance studio, sought to relocate signage to the west side of its building, arguing that a tree planted by the city blocks visibility from Magnolia Avenue.<\/p>\n The city staff countered that placing signage on an employee entrance could confuse visitors and instead proposed an alternate location on the building’s east-facing Grainger Street side.<\/p>\n Presentation materials emphasized that signs should be associated with public entrances to improve wayfinding and maintain a cohesive streetscape in the Near Southside district. The commission approved the staff recommendation on a 7-0 vote.<\/p>\n Trees on White Settlement Road<\/strong><\/p>\n The commission also rejected a request to waive tree-preservation requirements for a redevelopment project at 5301 and 5321 White Settlement Road. The applicant sought permission to reduce the required preservation of protected trees to 11.1% from 25%, despite a proposal that exceeded the city’s overall tree-canopy standards through additional plantings.<\/p>\n City staff had recommended approval, noting that the site plan would preserve four post oaks and require removed trees to be repurposed for furniture or other uses. But several commissioners expressed concern that utility easements and future site changes could jeopardize the remaining trees.<\/p>\n Residents and neighborhood advocates had written to the commission to oppose the waivers and also spoke at the hearing. A woman who lives near the site urged the commission to delay action until development plans are made final, arguing that decades-old post oaks cannot be replaced. After an initial motion to approve the waivers failed, commissioners voted 5-2 to deny them.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lou Chapman is a member of the Fort Worth Report Documenters<\/a> crew. If you believe anything in this account is inaccurate, please email us at news@fortworthreport.org<\/a> with \u201cCorrection Request\u201d in the subject line.<\/p>\n This <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/2026\/08\/01\/fort-worth-urban-design-commission-approves-tcu-project-rejects-tree-removal-signage-waivers\/”>article<\/a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/fortworthreport.org”>Fort Worth Report<\/a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<img src=”https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/fortworthreport.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/cropped-favicon.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”><\/p>\n <img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/?republication-pixel=true&post=689135&ga4=2820184429″ style=”width:1px;height:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/2026\/08\/01\/fort-worth-urban-design-commission-approves-tcu-project-rejects-tree-removal-signage-waivers\/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } <\/script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”\/\/cdn.parsely.com\/keys\/fortworthreport.org\/p.js”><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by The FWR Staff, Fort Worth Report August 1, 2026 The Fort Worth Urban Design Commission on July…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":973964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,14614,7371,14615,14616,7372,4329,10077,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,390865,390866],"class_list":["post-973963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-america","tag-documenters","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-documenters","tag-fort-worth-report-documenters","tag-fortworth","tag-real-estate","tag-tcu","tag-texas","tag-tx","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-west-berry-street","tag-west-magnolia-avenue"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117021531220359068","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=973963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/973964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=973963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=973963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=973963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}