Texas city could see grain elevators taken down

A collection of grain elevators in Fort Worth, Texas, is being considered for demolition, with government steps involving permits and budget allocations already underway.

A drafted fiscal year 2025 budget document being circulated by officials in Fort Worth describes the silos at 3700 Alice Street in a southern neighborhood of Forth Worth as having consistently been a harborage for "vagrants, criminal activities, illegal dumping and health/nuisance violations.”

The 276-page budget draft says the silo complex has been abandoned since around 2000 and claims previously budgeted amounts to address dismantling the silos have been insufficient. A 2025 budget draft posted to the Fort Worth website in mid-June is seeking $1.53 million for the project.

The silos and an adjacent elevator sit on a 3-acre lot of land with the structures standing 12 stories tall and having a footprint of 8,000 square feet, according to the city.

A 2007 Construction & Demolition Recycling report about the dismantling of a 195-feet high set of grain elevators in Minnesota describes how St. Paul, Minnesota-based Frattalone Cos. dismantled the structure from the top down.

The report indicates the company was able to recycle nearly 50,000 tons of concrete on-site during the project and sold the steel rebar scrap to metals recyclers. The elevators were being removed to prepare the site for the University of Minnesota football stadium.

In 2011, abandoned Cargill grain elevators in Calgary, Alberta, were taken down with explosives. Cargill at that time intended to recycle more than 99 percent of the resulting material.

In Fort Worth, public sentiment appears to be in favor of taking down the elevators, according to an early-July report on the Fort Worth Report website.

In that account, the elevator complex is described as “dilapidated” and as a “terrible eyesore, a blemish on our community and a blemish on all of Fort Worth” by a neighborhood association representative.

That same report says one permit pertaining to the project has been obtained but up to four more may be needed.

At a meeting where the demolition project was on the agenda, “City officials said police have been called to the address at least 367 times since 2006, and the city has recorded 59 citizen complaints about the property in the same time frame. In 2016, a 17-year-old girl died after falling down a grain shoot inside the complex,” according to the writeup.