April 2017 | Business View Magazine

64 65 Bedford, Texas the town had more than 10,000 residents and in 1974, the Boys Ranch property was transformed into Bedford’s biggest park. The decade of the 1970s saw the establishment of an industrial park, shopping centers, and restaurants, as well as the completion of the nearby Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. The population increased to some 20,800 in 1980 and about 44,000 in 1990, with 400 businesses. Today, Bed- ford is home to approximately 47,000 residents and 1,800 businesses. Business View Magazine first spoke to Jim Griffin, Bedford’s mayor, last spring, when the city was in the middle of redeveloping the 68- acre Boys Ranch Park, which is home to the city’s main recreational facilities, as well as its Senior AT A GLANCE Bedford, Texas WHAT: A city of 47,000 WHERE: Northeast Tarrant County, between Dallas and Ft. Worth WEBSITE: www.bedfordtx.gov We’re converting all of the City of Bedford to an automated meter reading program - putting in automatic meter reading devices. They’ll track and tabulate consumption and usage much better, so we don’t waste water. Jim griffin mayor of bedford Center and the Trinity Arts Guild.We caught up with Griffin, recently, to get an update on that, as well as several other ongoing city projects. “Last year, we talked about what we wanted to do with the Boys Ranch Project, which in- cluded reshaping the lake and getting all the new stuff added to that piece,” he begins. “All that was completed.We had a grand opening and now we’re working on what we call ‘Phase Next,’ which is a compiling of whatever else needs to be done to the park.We’re hoping that will include a new recreational facility that will house not only activities for our residents but for the Senior Center, the Trinity Arts Guild, and some other components that we have on the Boys Ranch property. So, we’re working on the final vision for that and we’re getting that up to an architect, shortly.We’ll be having town hall