Huge (80+ Photos) Walkthrough Of West 7th Development

February 19, 2009 at 1:27 pm | General | Tags: , , , , ,

Today, I’ve got something very cool to share with you all. As you might guess from the photo above, I took a tour through the West 7th development with representatives from Peloton Real Estate Partners and Cypress Equities. We toured it all – starting in the One West 7th office building at 7th & Foch, continuing on through the neighboring Movie Tavern/Lucky Strike Lanes/LA Fitness building, and into the adjacent apartment buildings, from top to bottom, inside and out. There’s a ton of photos to share, so I’m going to be putting a “Read More” link below so that they don’t choke the main site. Click on through to read more.

Certainly, most of you are at least somewhat familiar with West 7th. One of the three big mixed-use projects currently underway along 7th Street between Downtown and the museums, West 7th occupies a swath of property roughly bounded by 7th, University, Morton, and Foch. Developed by Cypress Equities and featuring architecture by Good, Fulton, & Farrell, Gideon Toal, and RTKL, West 7th will feature approximately 315,000 square feet of retail space, 240,000 square feet of office space, and 345 apartments. Below is a diagram showing the retail tenants signed thus far:

The Pour House, Backwoods, and Sovereign Bank are in their own standalone buildings around the project’s periphery. Along 7th Street, thus far, will be Delaney’s Irish Pub, Lucky Strike Lanes, and Fort Worth City Market, a new expansion of Dallas City Market (similar to Eatzi’s, from what I’ve been told). On the project’s interior, so far, will be L. A. Fitness, Yofé (a fresh fruit & yogurt café), Movie Tavern, Bailey’s Prime Plus Steakhouse, Avant Garden, Paciugo, Tillman’s Roadhouse, Patrizio, Fireside Pies, Brüt, and Ali Baba Mediterranean Grill. And yes, Fred’s Texas Cafe is back in there, too – West 7th seems to be including Fred’s on their marketing materials as sort of the development’s burger joint. Most of these are tenants that have never been in Fort Worth before and should add some interesting options to the area’s retail/restaurant mix.

On to the walkthrough. We began in One West 7th, the project’s first office building at 7th & Foch. Here’s a rendering of the finished building:

We started coming through the building’s office lobby, looking down where the elevators are going in.

Looking left is a view of the ground-level retail space stretching to 7th & Foch. The ground-level retail spaces in West 7th have very tall ceilings and should make for great tenant spaces with the wide sidewalks outside and the huge windows along the street.

We walked up to the building’s top floor, the seventh (the developments along 7th are under a view shed stretching from the Amon Carter Museum towards Downtown, and as such this is about as tall as one can go if one’s property is in that view shed). The office floors also have huge windows, and provide some great views of the surrounding areas. Here, we’re looking across 7th at Plaza del Sol Imports and other examples of the older businesses along the street. This really drives home the huge differences in scale between 7th Street’s old days and its future.

Here, we’re looking further west down 7th across Fort Worth Coin Company, Dee Jay’s Candles, and Enterprise Rent-A-Car.

Here, we’ve turned east and are looking across West 7th’s new Sovereign Bank, also showing us Lola’s and parts of American National Bank and Montgomery Plaza.

This gives an idea of the open and glassy nature of the office building’s interior.

Looking to the east inside the 7th floor.

One of the office building’s unique features is the way it integrates outdoor space into a business setting. Floors 4 through 7 feature balconies at the corner of 7th & Foch. Even though the balconies did not yet have railings, I decided to peek my camera out to snap a photo of the view from the 7th floor balcony.

The view from the 7th floor balcony, looking east towards Downtown. Montgomery Plaza and SoSeven can be seen further east down 7th Street.

Back inside now, and looking southeast. This gives us a view that’s very different today than it was just a few years ago. In the foreground is a view of the old warehouse along Foch that has been turned into retail space. Dean Kingston, Asel Art Supply, La Familia, and other tenants have made their home in that interesting piece of adaptive reuse. Just behind the warehouse sits the older AMLI 7th Street Station apartments. Behind that are the SoSeven Townhomes (recognizable by their red tile roofs) and the SoSeven ArtHouse condos. Beyond that are Trinity Park and hospitals in the Near Southside.

Looking down Foch from the 7th floor. I’ve heard a rumor that the fur store in the immediate foreground has been sold and will be renovated to be similar in appearance to the architecture in West 7th, but I’m still trying to find out more about that.

Zooming in on SoSeven from the 7th floor.

Looking towards SoSeven. Harris Methodist and Cook Children’s are also quite easily visible.

Here, we’re zoomed in to Downtown to the east from the 7th floor. Many buildings are identifiable from here – Montgomery Plaza, Two City Place, the Bass towers, Chesapeake Plaza, The Carnegie, Mallick Tower, The Tower, the Firestone Apartments, Carter + Burgess Plaza, the Petroleum Building, 714 Main, and the Cash America Building fill the view.

Looking a bit more to the right, we’re looking across the rooftops of SoSeven’s offices & lofts towards Trinity Terrace, Burnett Plaza, and the new Omni Hotel & Condos. Smaller buildings I can make out here include 500 West 7th (on the left edge of the photo), the Neil P. (in shadow next to Burnett Plaza), the AT&T Building, the U. S. Courthouse at Burnett Park, the Oil & Gas Building (visible thanks to the old blue flame rooftop sign), and the new Convention Center parking garage next to the Omni.

Immediately to the south is a parking garage which will serve both the office tenants and the retail spaces (the development will also feature on-street parking in the interior streets).

Looking down at the Foch Street warehouse.

Right in the middle of it all, of course, is Fred’s. Now that West 7th is listing Fred’s as something of a part of the development, I expect business at everybody’s favorite hole-in-the-wall will be even more brisk. The structure to be built on the vacant lot behind Fred’s is still to be determined – the intent is to put a hotel on that site. In the meantime, it’s serving as construction staging.

Looking west through the office space as the sun goes down.

The central elevator/restroom area of the office space.

Now we’re looking west down 7th at the big 7th/University/Camp Bowie/Bailey intersection and the Museum Place development.

Looking a bit more southeast, we can see the Will Rogers Memorial Center and the Modern through the glare of the setting sun.

Zoomed in to the Museum Place development.

Another unique feature of One West 7th is on the third floor. Instead of a corner balcony, the third floor features a large terrace the runs the length of the building’s 7th Street elevation. From the street, it gives the impression of the building’s central office mass slightly “floating” above the retail base. Here, we’re on the terrace looking across at Sovereign Bank.

Looking east from the third floor terrace towards Downtown.

Actually, as you might be starting to see, balconies, decks, and terraces are a big part of West 7th’s design. The office building’s third-floor terrace actually extends west away from the building, out over the Lucky Strike Lanes space. It forms a sort of “pulpit” at this point, overlooking this – a large rooftop deck that’s part of the Lucky Strike Lanes space. Lucky Strike’s bar & lounge spaces will be just inside those windows, and will extend out onto this impressively-sized outdoor space on 7th Street.

Looking west down 7th from the end of the “pulpit.”

Inside the office building’s third floor, looking out over Lucky Strike’s rooftop deck. You can see here how the third floor terrace extends out over Lucky Strike’s deck.

Now, we’ve moved down into the Lucky Strike space. We’re roughly in the lounge/bar/food part of Lucky Strike here, looking out at their rooftop deck. The third-floor office terrace can be seen extending out across Lucky Strike’s deck, and there’s a large cutout in it making it almost “float” above the Lucky Strike deck. There are actually several places in West 7th where various parts of rooftop decks and terraces make rectangular cutouts, and the effect is very reminiscent of the outdoor dining area at Cafe Modern. Given the development’s proximity to the Modern, this is a nice bit of architectural homage – it’s extremely subtle and might not be picked up by most people, but for those familiar with the Modern it’s a nice bit of context.

Also, you might be noticing the facade work out there. The primary material for the development’s facades is the classic light tan brick – one thing that could genuinely be called a Fort Worth tradition, as this sort of brick is used virtually everywhere in urban Fort Worth in a variety of shades. Rather than blending in too much, though, West 7th offsets the tan brick with extensive use of stucco in several different bright colors (I saw orange and green during the tour), along with metal & wire panels in places. It’s definitely going to be unlike anything we’ve seen around here, but the presence of the tan brick does give it a root in local tradition even if that brick is on forms that aren’t common in Fort Worth.

Another angle on the 3rd floor terrace extending out over Lucky Strike’s deck.

I imagine Lucky Strike’s deck will be very popular, especially since it’s a bit better shaded being on the north side of the building.

Looking through the third-floor terrace cutout.

Stairway from Lucky Strike’s small ground-level entrance to their space on the second floor. Visitors can take either these stairs or dedicated elevators to Lucky Strike from the ground-level lobby.

Looking west inside the Lucky Strike space. We’re standing roughly near where the bar will be, and towards the east end will be the bowling lanes. There will be ten lanes in all, and with the large windows all around I expect this will be quite a cool space once finished out.

On the left is a wall going up – that wall will separate Lucky Strike from L. A. Fitness, which will be on the first and second floors.

This is the second level of L. A. Fitness. In the immediate foreground will be the weightlifting area. Farther off in the background on the right are a series of crisscrossing escalators – these are located in the building’s curved corner at Currie & Crockett, and take visitors up from the ground level to Movie Tavern on the third floor of the building. The escalators are surrounded by giant curved glass walls.

More of the second level of the L. A. Fitness space (we’re looking through the not-yet-finished wall between L. A. Fitness and Lucky Strike). In the background on the right, where the scissor lift is parked, will be the basketball court.

Now we’ve moved back to the ground floor under Lucky Strike. The space we’re looking at here on 7th Street will be home to Delaney’s Irish Pub.

Looking through more ground-level retail space along 7th. The windows at the end look out onto Currie.

Now, we’re out on the development’s “main promenade” – Crockett Street. On the right is the L. A. Fitness/Movie Tavern building, and further down the street are the two apartment buildings.

Here at the intersection of Crockett & Currie, all the buildings pull back from the intersection and create large plazas in front of their corners. The corners themselves are all gently curved around the intersection and feature balconies – Movie Tavern’s large balcony can be seen at upper right.

The currently sunken, unfinished intersection of Crockett & Currie will be filled with a patterned concrete design. All the streets in the development are being torn up and reworked to feature better paving, wider sidewalks and on-street “teaser” parking. (Foch is the next street to be torn up and remade, so FYI if you’re going to be around West 7th in the not-too-distant future.)

Looking down Crockett between the apartment buildings.

Here, we’re looking up at the L. A. Fitness/Movie Tavern building. Movie Tavern on the top floor there features a large glass wall in the lobby looking out over the development. Movie Tavern can be accessed from the ground floor or from the top level of the parking garage. The glass wall was put in so that even when people enter Movie Tavern from the garage, they’re still visible from the street and add to the scenes of activity going on.

Here we’re looking up at Movie Tavern’s sizable balcony at Crockett & Currie.

Looking down Currie along the apartment building as the brick facade goes up. As you can tell from the doors in the wall, these units will feature small balconies. Units at the corners of the building will feature large curved balconies (as we’ll see later) and units along the top on Crockett have still larger setback terraces.

Crockett facade of one of the apartment buildings. (I believe the ground floor retail space seen here is roughly where Paciugo will go.) Here we see the units awaiting their smaller balconies, and at the top floor you can see the setback for the larger terraces on that level.

Now, we’ve moved to the 7th Street stretch of the central block, looking west towards Museum Place. This is a parking garage, but it features the same tall-ceiling retail spaces as the rest of the buildings (and the upper garage levels will be screened to improve their appearance). Where the workers in vests are further down the street will be the location of Fort Worth City Market. Even though 7th Street itself could still use some pedestrian improvements, the wide sidewalks going in here at West 7th are a good start at improving the corridor’s walkability.

Now we’ve moved up into the apartment building, on the second floor. This is one of two large courtyards in the center of the building that some units will face. This will be attractively landscaped and should make a pleasant space for the interior units to look in to.

More of the interior courtyard units.

Now, we’re in a unit at the corner of Crockett & Currie. Here you can see the curved balcony that these corner units will have, looking out over the central intersection and plazas.

Here, we’re out on the balcony, looking across at the other apartment building. I believe the corner space on the ground level across the street there will be Bailey’s Prime Steakhouse. You can also see the building’s upper level stucco facade going up.

Inside the corner apartment on the second floor.

Here is another of the development’s extensive rooftop decks, this time on the northwest corner of 7th & Currie. This deck will go with the ground-level retail space below it and will make for a fantastic space for dining & relaxing. (Rectangular cutouts in the walls can be seen on the right.)

Looking east off the 7th & Currie rooftop deck. One West 7th (the development’s office building) can be seen on the right.

The apartment building backs up to the rooftop deck – there are no windows because the architects wanted to ensure privacy and noise suppression from the rooftop deck into the apartments. This blank wall would make a great place to project photos or videos from whatever establishment winds up in the space (old movies only, I’m guessing – can’t step on Movie Tavern’s toes, after all).

Looking across Currie from the rooftop deck – that’s Lucky Strike’s space on the second level there. I believe that Yofé will be in this general area of the development as well.

Inside the parking garage over Fort Worth City Market’s space. The beams on the exterior there are supports for the screens that will disguise the garage’s parking levels.

At the northwest end of the north garage/apartment building is yet another rooftop deck for the retail space below, this one looking out over the intersection of 7th & Norwood and also giving a view of the big intersection and Museum Place further to the west.

Looking out towards the Will Rogers Memorial Center and the Modern, we see the L-shaped site of the development’s second office building and an associated garage. This building will be similar in design to the first office building. A small building with a rooftop deck at the University end of the parking garage will cap it off. The site for this second office building is prepped – as I understand it, it will be built once the first office building is complete and leased up, after the development gets open and running.

View of the Modern – Richard Serra’s “Vortex” sculpture can be seen just above the Modern on the left.

Looking out at Museum Place from the 7th & Norwood corner.

Inside the central garage.

Now we’re heading into the center of the Crockett apartment block. The site’s blocks are rectangular, rather than Downtown’s small and easily walkable 200′ x 200′ square blocks, and buildings all the way down the longer sides would hinder pedestrian flow. Cypress decided they wanted the development to be even more walkable than it would have been with simpler buildings filling the rectangular lots, so they designed these mid-block pedestrian passages through the buildings. Here, we’re looking down the pedestrian passage in the north apartment block towards the south apartment block. These passages connect all the way through from 7th to Morton and dramatically cut down a pedestrian’s walk through the development. They will be well lit and feature metal mesh walls in the interior garage areas to keep them separate from garage spaces and to further provide a sense of enclosure to pedestrians.

Coming out of the pedestrian passage. The apartment buildings step back in the center of the blocks and create large plazas on both sides of Crockett. These plazas will feature two sculptures, sixteen feet tall, one on each side of Crockett. They are being designed by Fort Worth artist Juan Louis.

Looking across at the south apartment building in the plaza. This gives a good view of the green stucco being used on this part of the apartment blocks.

Looking east down the south apartment building, standing in the plaza. Note how the walls along the apartment building setbacks actually extend out past the building facade a bit – this was done to subtly enhance the sense of enclosure in the plaza space.

More of the south apartment building.

Looking east down Crockett between the apartment buildings towards the L. A. Fitness/Movie Tavern building and Downtown. Crockett will be redone soon – repaved, enhanced sidewalks, and on-street “teaser” parking. The street is being kept at two narrow lanes and the extra space is given over to pedestrians. Between the narrow street and the five-story buildings on each side, Crockett achieves an impressive sense of enclosure. This definition of the space as a cozy outdoor room is one of the most important tenants of good urban design, and standing here in the middle of the development that sense of enclosure is very strong. It feels like a very pleasant room, very welcoming.

Still to come after the buildings are finished is a lighting scheme – one of the elements of that lighting scheme will be “festival” lighting along Crockett. Strands of lights will criss-cross between the buildings, putting a glowing “roof” on the outdoor room (the plaza space in the middle will not feature the festival lighting, giving it a more open feel that should create an interesting play between the various parts of the streetscape).

This Crockett Street interior will be home to many of the development’s tenants – Paciugo, Bailey’s Prime Plus Steakhouse, Avant Garden, Patrizio, Tillman’s Roadhouse, Brüt, Fireside Pies, and Ali Baba.

Looking back at the north apartment building. You can see 7th Street through the mid-block pedestrian passage.

At Norwood & Crockett, the apartment buildings again feature ground-level plaza spaces, but here they curve outward rather than inward, creating these wraparound balconies looking into Crockett and towards the Modern (and the future second office building). This is the south building.

A view of the wraparound Norwood end of the north apartment building.

Looking east down Crockett from Norwood.

The south apartment building. West 7th will be a colorful development – besides the green and cream stucco colors seen here, I also saw an orange stucco on another part of the development.

This space on Norwood almost at Morton will be the apartment leasing office. Pop’s Safari Room can be seen in the background.

This space at Norwood & Morton is the site of the project’s swimming pool, for apartment residents.

Looking up at the Norwood & Morton corner of the south apartment building.

The wraparound corners of the apartment buildings at Norwood & Crockett.

One more look back through the pedestrian passages.

Whew! West 7th is looking extremely good – the retail spaces, urban streetscape, pedestrian access, and attention to interesting details in the project are all very impressive. Good, Fulton, & Farrell, Gideon Toal, and RTKL are giving Fort Worth a style and caliber of contemporary architecture we haven’t had in this town before and I think it’s a great fit for the Cultural District. I’m glad I had the chance to walk through the development and share the progress with all of you. A big thanks to Peloton Real Estate Partners and Cypress Equities for giving me the grand guided tour.

Below are some renderings of the finished development.