UPDATED: Ridglea Theater and Office Building Doomed to Demolition by Bank of America

June 22, 2010 at 7:32 am | Architecture & Urban Design, Preservation, Urban Development | Tags: , , ,

Photo by John T. Roberts

Terrible news for Fort Worth historic preservation:  the Ridglea Theater, one of only a handful of remaining single-screen movie theaters in Fort Worth, and its adjacent office building would be nearly entirely demolished under a plan from Bank of America, who want to demolish everything but the facade of the theater and build a new bank branch on the site behind the facade.

It’s yet another black mark on Fort Worth’s track record of historic preservation, which (despite what City Hall would have you believe) is incredibly poor.  The Ridglea has no protection of any kind, not even Demolition Delay.  Historic Fort Worth added the Ridglea, along with the other remaining single-screen theaters, to their Most Endangered list this year.

The Ridglea has for years served as a live music venue, and still does, playing host especially to Fort Worth’s metal scene.  That track record of active use makes the comments from the Ridglea’s district’s council member, “Zim” Zimmerman, even more puzzling.  Zimmerman is quoted in the above DFW.com article as saying:

“The interior is [in] very poor shape, probably not worth the cost of rehab.”
What’s puzzling is that not only has the Ridglea been in active use for years (and is in fact still in active use), but having been inside it ourselves in the not too distant past, it hardly looked anywhere near as bad as indicated above.  We’ve seen theaters in far, far worse condition be restored and go on to live healthy lives.  Seems a very odd statement to make considering the Ridglea is in better shape than a lot of historic buildings that have been successfully rehabbed in Fort Worth and it’s still being used.

What’s doubly unnerving about the proposal at the Ridglea is that just down the road a short distance is an example of a bank that went into a historic single-screen theater and actually kept it intact – the Frost Bank that occupies the former Bowie Theater:

Photo by John T. Roberts

Seems to us that Bank of America is not such a one-of-a-kind flower that they couldn’t pull off something similar at the Ridglea, saving the building for other future uses.

Single-screen theaters in Fort Worth are an extremely endangered breed.  There’s the old Bowie (now the Frost Bank), the vacant Berry, the Ridglea, the New Isis, and only a tiny handful of others in various states of decay.  While Fort Worth likes to think of itself as being different from Dallas, in terms of preservation we’re right there next to our neighbors to the east.  This city does not take historic preservation seriously.  We’d hope that the city council would take this new threat to one of our few single-screen theaters as a wake-up call to stand up for preserving more of our built heritage – but how likely is that?

We hope a lot of you out there would contact the city council and express your disappointment in the sorry state of historic preservation in this city and this latest failure to save one of our rare single-screen theaters.

UPDATE: The management of the Ridglea (not the owner – the folks who run the music venue) have released the following statement on their web site, and are urging people to write to the City Council (especially District 3 representative Zim Zimmerman) and the Zoning Commission to express their displeasure with the proposal to demolish everything but the Ridglea’s facade for a bank branch:

As you may have heard, the previous owner of the Ridglea Theater complex lost the building to FixFunding, LLC, a funding company based in Dallas. The complex has been up for sale and may have already been sold to a bank. Richard has shown the Ridglea to their “team” of architects more than once.

However, the City of Fort Worth has requested that IF FOLKS DO NOT LIKE THE PROPOSED ZONING CHANGE, THEY SHOULD LET CITY COUNCILMAN W.B. “ZIM” ZIMMERMAN AND THE FORT WORTH CITY COUNCIL KNOW IMMEDIATELY!

Richard and I would love to get this stopped – not because of what we do here (after all, we need to retire sometime) but simply because this is the last of the grand old buildings in Fort Worth. It would be a shame to lose part of the heritage of Fort Worth, and it should be preserved! The paintings are original! The mosaic floor could never be replaced, and the structure itself inside is beautiful. Of course the present owners are probably not interested in the history, and I can see their point – they are in the business of making money.

This is going to hit the newspapers immediately, and we would like to let our loyal supporters know what is going on! It’s HORRID!!!! Our lease runs into early next spring, so we hope we can stay at least that long.

Meanwhile, it’s BUSINESS AS USUAL! Ridglea Theater needs the local support now more than ever. Please contact the Fort Worth City Council, and let them know how much you want the Ridglea Theater to stay!

If you would like to help support the preservation of Ridglea Theater, please use the contact information below to make your voice heard.

City Councilman W.B. Zimmerman District 3 Office 1000 Throckmorton St. Fort Worth, Texas 76102 Telephone: 817-392-8803 Fax: 817-392-6187 E-mail:District3@fortworthgov.org