Franklin Family Looks to Ease Parking on Fort Worth Stockyards

One of Texas’s historic Chisholm Trail rest stops, the Fort Worth Stockyards, is low on parking.

The Franklin family — who own bootmaker M.L. Leddy’s — recently received zoning approval for a new four-story parking garage in the Stockyards to relieve some of the parking pressure at the tourist magnet.

The Fort Worth Zoning commission awarded a unanimous recommendation to Franklin Leddy Corporation and W Real Estate Holdings to build a 246-space garage with Parking Systems of America. If the plans come to fruition, the new $14 million garage will be slotted at 115 NW 25th Street and 2458 Ellis Avenue, according to the Dallas Business Journal. Retail and office space are set to be included on the ground floor, according to the outlet, who cited a zoning presentation.

Construction on the site could begin as early as the end of the FIFA World Cup on July 19, which the DFW Metroplex will help host, according to the outlet. The case is set to appear before the Fort Worth City Council and the city’s Urban Design Commission in June.

Plans for expansion of one of Texas’s premier tourist attractions have recently gone awry. The current plans are a fraction of the paused second Stockyards expansion that would have included 1,300 spaces in two underground parking garages. The operation was set on the backburner as internal shufflings in developer Majestic Realty Company saw a sweeping, $1 billion plus renovation project reduced to $35 million in practice, with no clear future in sight.

Craig Cavileer, a former executive vice president at Majestic who spearheaded the first wave of renovations, is in the middle of a legal battle with his former company over an alleged breach of contract and failure to repay loans. Cavileer countersued Majestic in May 2025.

To illustrate the necessity of the new parking garage, the Franklin family cited a 2023 Fort Worth study that showed parking at more than 100 percent capacity on the Stockyards’ Ellis Avenue, Exchange Avenue and Northwest 25th Street.

— Hunter Cooke