Knights of Pythias Hall saved, will be redeveloped

It’s official, folks – the historic Knights of Pythias Hall in eastern downtown in the Hillside neighborhood has been saved from the wrecking ball! The building now has a contract on it by the TownSite Company, who are also behind the Depot Lofts just down the street. I’ll let Mr. Phillip Poole of TownSite tell the tale:

The Townsite Company presented a contract today to the building owners of the Knights of Pythias Building for renovation.

Our firm had done a structural analysis on the building in 1998 for the former owners. When we revisited the building this week although the interior wood structure had continued to fail the load bearing masonry walls and foundation had not advanced in deterioration.

There appears to be no current city code violations on the building and we will move immediately upon acceptance of our contract to apply to the City of Fort Worth for an historic designation.

That process will take about 120 days. We feel confident that we can reuse this building in a similar manner as we were successful in doing on the Historic Cotton Depot up the street.

We look forward to a successful use of this important historic asset.

Please, join me in giving a round of applause to Mr. Poole and TownSite for stepping up to save this bit of Fort Worth’s past. This is a great victory for the city of Fort Worth, its people, and its heritage.

We eagerly look forward to TownSite’s plans for the building, and will follow the project closely to keep the city appraised of the building’s new life.