The city of Fort Worth will hold a public ribbon-cutting Thursday to celebrate the purchase of 50 acres of prairie land in east Fort Worth known as Broadcast Hill.
The land, directly adjacent to the Tandy Hills Nature Area, was purchased earlier this year for $610,000 and will be maintained in a similar way to Tandy Hills by the Parks and Recreation Department and the Friends of Tandy Hill organization, the city said.
The property will be open to the public for recreational use, including use of two current trails, as the land will be preserved as open space.
According to the Friends of Tandy Hills, the addition of Broadcast Hill to Tandy Hills makes the 210-acre area one of the largest urban open space areas in the nation.
Fort Worth City Councilwoman Kelly Allen Gray will speak at the ceremony at 7 p.m., which is open to the public. Attendees are encouraged to bring hiking boots, a face mask and to be prepared to be socially distanced.
The $610,000 purchase was funded by the city's Mineral Trust Fund and donations from the Friends of Tandy Hills, who raised more than $64,000 in private donations.
Don Young, the president and founder of Friends of Tandy Hills, presented the check to Gray during a June 16 City Council meeting. Gray represents District 8, where Tandy Hills and Broadcast Hill is located.
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The purchase of Broadcast Hill falls within Fort Worth's recently developed Open Spaces initiative, a long-term plan to preserve the natural state of "high-priority" property.
In her 2020 State of the City address, Mayor Betsy Price said that the city was losing 50 acres of natural open space per week to development.
Other areas, like a section of the west shore of Lake Arlington, have been identified as other lands worth preserving as part of the Open Spaces initiative.
For much of its history, NBC 5 was located on the east side of Broadcast Hill at 3900 Barnett Drive, immediately east of the land recently acquired. In 2013 the station moved to their new studios at Centerport and in 2014 turned the deed for the old facility and the land to the city of Fort Worth. NBC 5's former studios are now used by the Fort Worth Police Department.
