I’ve reported on a bit of breaking news over on sister site West & Clear: Fort Worth’s own XTO Energy is buying Hunt Petroleum.

XTO keeps growing and growing – and they’re running out of historic buildings to buy and restore. Once they finish up with 714 Main and the Binyon O’Keefe Warehouse, I don’t see all that many opportunities for them to buy any more large historic buildings. At some point, they’re going to have to start infilling their existing lots.

I have heard tales that XTO already has designs drawn up for every one of their blocks – a building that replaces the parking lot on the W. T. Waggoner block and wraps around that building, another that similarly replaces the parking garage and the building housing the Pour House that wraps around the Petroleum Building, and designs for the former Landmark Tower block which will be surface parking for the time being – and various combinations and variations on all of those. If they keep up their success, we may see new buildings growing from their vacant downtown property sooner rather than later.