A clinic is coming to a health care desert in this Fort Worth neighborhood

The Las Vegas Trail area of Fort Worth is getting a health clinic, leaders announced Tuesday.

The neighborhood near Interstate 30 in west Fort Worth has lacked many of the most basic health services for years, leaving residents with few options to get preventive check-ups or regular care for chronic conditions. The area doesn’t have any family doctors, pediatricians or health clinics, according to a neighborhood transformation plan.

Now, a neighborhood clinic will open in the area and be operated jointly by the JPS Health Network and Cook Children’s Medical Center, two of the largest health providers in Tarrant County. JPS CEO and President Dr. Karen Duncan announced news of the clinic at a Commissioners Court meeting.

The clinic will be built on 3.7 acres of land at the intersection of Calmont Avenue and Cherry Lane, Duncan said. The land was donated to Cook Children’s, she said. Construction will begin later this year, and the two-story facility is expected to open in late 2025, according to a press release from Cook Children’s. The children’s hospital’s health foundation will “spearhead funding for the project with the support of the philanthropic community,” according to the release.

A 2017 article in the Star-Telegram highlighted the area’s more pressing challenges, including high rates of poverty and crime and limited access to fresh food, public transportation, high-quality housing, and health care. Since 2017, leaders have focused on one area of the neighborhood in particular, bordered by Interstate 30 and Camp Bowie Boulevard West to the north and south and Cherry Lane and Loop 820 to the east and west. The nonprofit LVT Rise opened a community center, and has spearheaded planning for the neighborhood’s future with leaders like council member Michael Crain, who represents the neighborhood on City Council. The neighborhood is also known as Western Hills or Western Hills North.

Currently, the closest health provider is the North Texas Area Community Health Center, a federally-funded health clinic that treats many patients with public health insurance or without health insurance. For a resident of Las Vegas Trail who doesn’t have a car, it would take them well over an hour to get to the health center: A 20-minute walk to a bus station, a 32-minute bus ride, and then another 20-minute walk to finally get to the clinic.

The neighborhood transformation plan, published last year, outlined providing health services in the heart of the neighborhood as one of its top priorities. The plan also calls for major investments in public and neighborhood health, including more parks and open spaces, roads and sidewalks that allow for safer walking, more access to fresh food, and better public transportation as essential to improving health for residents.

Originally published May 16, 2023 at 3:37 PM