Star-Telegram Puts Main Downtown Building Up For Sale

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Not long after putting their nifty jet-age Classifieds Building up for sale, the Star-Telegram has done something surprising and rather disappointing: they’re putting their main office building downtown up for sale. The historic Star-Telegram Building was built in 1920 and designed by the legendary local firm Sanguinet & Staats. It was the headquarters that Amon Carter built for the paper and which has been the paper’s home ever since.

Over at sister site West and Clear, my colleague Steve-O wonders what this means for the paper (according to the S-T, they’ll keep a small downtown office for reporters and sales reps and move the rest of the staff to locations in the ‘burbs and Arlington, which is powerfully lame if I do say so myself). The S-T certainly looks to be in dire straits. Me, I’m wondering what this means for the building.

The Star-Telegram Building is not, to my knowledge, a protected historic structure. It could conceivably be demolished by the new owners. The building itself is an attractive structure marred by a series of remodelings that have seen the ground floor encased in concrete panels and the windows covered with ugly mirror tinting. It’s certainly not so far gone that it couldn’t be restored, though. Perhaps a good steward of downtown architecture like XTO Energy could purchase the building and restore it to its original Amon Carter-era glory. Or, perhaps somebody could purchase the building and convert it to residential use – the history and character of the building would make it a nifty loft apartment or condo building.