The next step in the Fort Worth urban revolution, Fort Worthology promotes New Urbanism, traditional neighborhood design, smart growth, transit, and sustainability in Fort Worth, Texas.
Phase one of SoSeven’s Shops & Lofts is progressing steadily. With construction having neared completion on the first two buildings, which will be office space over retail, most work is concentrated on the third and fourth buildings, which will be condos over retail. Here, the condo/retail building fronting 7th rises alongside the first office/retail building.
Looking down through the path between the two condos buildings towards the offices.
The other condo/retail building of phase one. These buildings sit over an underground parking structure.
We took a look at Museum Place yesterday, and now it’s time for the West 7th development by Cypress Equities down the street. Framing should be getting underway shortly for the apartments above the retail here in these two buildings on either side of Crockett Street. The buildings should top out at 5 stories (one story of concrete + four stories of wood framing).
On the project’s northeast block, the office building at 7th & Foch is getting some facade work done. Around it, another parking garage is rising, and the buildings that will house the fitness club, Lucky Strike Lanes, and Movie Tavern are being framed as well.
Across the street, the Sovereign Bank is making progress as well, with some facade and glass being installed.
Finally took the time away from remodeling to get some construction photos. Here’s an update on the progress at Museum Place in the Cultural District. One Museum Place, the big retail/office/condo building, is very nearly complete, as seen in the photo above. The last bits of glass and such are going up now, and there’s also now an alcohol license notice in the corner retail space for Eddie V.’s Edgewater Grill.
Across the street, the Flatiron-style retail/office building is progressing nicely as well. Almost the entire slanted south side of the building is complete, and work on that side’s ground floor is going now as well. The building’s other two sides, which looked like some sort of black paneling in earlier renderings, are actually dark brick, as seen below in the photo of the building’s north side:
As more of Museum Place moves ahead, I still think it’s my favorite of the big three 7th Street developments. There are a lot of oddly-shaped blocks here and the project is filling them in interesting ways, and thus far I like the architecture of the project better than the other two. I look forward to seeing more progress on the project - roadwork and site prep continue on the rest of the project’s blocks.
While I’m deep in House Remodelingland and thus a bit disconnected from events and goings-on, I have noticed another article in the Business Press revealing that the West 7th development has announced another tenant: Delaney’s Irish Pub.
Developers of Fort Worth’s West 7th project have inked a deal with Delaney’s Irish Pub for 5,000 square feet of space.
The Fort Worth pub will be the second Delaney’s location in the Metroplex, joining the McKinney location, which offers a dim-lit, authentic Irish pub feel, said Kirk Williams, vice president of development for Dallas-based Cypress Equities, which is handling retail leasing for West 7th.
Another restaurant/bar announcement for a 7th Street development. How…not shocking at all. Again, as long as the physical form of the buildings is good, the ground-floor programming is less important. It will be interesting to see how many of West 7th’s sixteen trillion eateries and drinkeries survives the first year or two after opening - and which ones are left standing.
Ideally, I’d hope that the 7th Street developments create a new boom in the Cultural District for residential and such. We’ll see how it goes.
The Fort Worth Business Press reports that the West 7th development is continuing to add tenants to its roster, and that Cypress has switched from Starwood to another hotel operator. The new hotel will be announced by the end of the month.
The ground floor of the hotel building will feature retail with an elevator lobby that will take guests to the third floor of the building, where the hotel’s grand lobby will be located. Also on the ground floor will be an American grill themed restaurant that will occupy 6,000 square feet of space.
Williams said some of the planned retailers for the development include an upscale Mexican food restaurant and an Irish pub as well as a steak house and a Mediterranean café.
Got enough restaurants? How about some fargin’ retail?
That’s my biggest complaint with the 7th Street developments - about 99% of the ground-level tenants are restaurants. Would love to see some retail-type places make the move, but of course I have to remember my own advice: as long as the physical form is good, the ground-floor programming will eventually work itself out.
Fort Worthology reader Mark Rybczyk sends in this photo of the new Sovereign Bank being built on 7th Street as part of the West 7th development by Cypress Equities. The new Sovereign Bank has been designed by local firm Schwarz-Hanson (no relation to David M. Schwarz of Bass Hall/etc. fame), who also designed two other bank buildings on 7th Street: the Citizen National near Montgomery Plaza, and the Whitley Penn building at 7th & Summit.
Both of those buildings had serious urban design flaws. Their sidewalks are too small in both cases. The building near Montgomery Plaza is oriented to face its side parking lot, not the sidewalk. The building at 7th & Summit similarly faces the parking lot rather than the street, and has the other problem of being set back from the 7th & Summit intersection for more parking. Unfortunate suburban touches.
(The firm also recently did an office building on 8th Avenue near Allen that is horribly suburban, with a huge parking lot out front. It is completely inappropriate to the site, and it’s a shame it got approved before the new Near Southside zoning and design guidelines took effect.)
This building, while it looks to be nothing really remarkable, at least does appear to feature a corner entrance facing the sidewalks, rather than an entrance stuck out back. If that’s the case, it will be an improvement over previous works. If S-H intends to continue designing in urban Fort Worth, I do hope they learn more about proper urban design and improve their output from that standpoint.
So…it’s a bit irritating to be signed up for Google Alerts on “So7,” keeping an eye out for news about the Fort Worth urban development, when there’s also an apparently somewhat popular Indonesian band out there called “Sheila on 7,” whose fans all seem to like referring to the band as “So7.”
And so, in the interest of being the only site on the entire Internet to link Fort Worth urban infill with Indonesian pop, I give you the video for “Pejantan Tangguh” by Sheila on 7.
Working on my HDR again, and got these three from the Kimbell.
On a side note, posting has been irregular here the last few days and will likely be so again for a while. There’s a project I’m starting that will likely consume a lot of my after-work and weekend time for a month or so - a construction project. I’ll write some more about it in the next week or two. A few of you out there already know about it. In the mean time, enjoy the photos.
Kimbell Art Museum expansion may go on west lawn
BY GAILE ROBINSON
FORT WORTH — The Kimbell Art Museum, whose officials last year announced plans to expand by adding a building across Arch Adams Street, may construct that space even closer — in its own front yard.
Kimbell officials acknowledged Monday that the museum and architect Renzo Piano are considering the lawn just west of the Louis Kahn-designed museum as a second possible site for the proposed expansion.
Piano, designer of Dallas’ Nasher Sculpture Center and other highly regarded museum buildings around the world, will prepare plans for both sites, Kimbell officials said. Kay Fortson, president of the Kimbell Art Foundation, said the museum hoped to reveal its choice of site and unveil design plans by the end of this year.
In a news release in 2007, the museum announced that the addition would be built across the street, on the southeast corner of Arch Adams and Darnell streets where its auditorium building is now.
Asked on Monday when the front lawn became available for Piano’s consideration, Fortson said, “I always assumed the entire property could be considered.”
I’m inclined to call this starchitect arrogance - personally, I think the lawn ought to be preserved. The way the Kimbell opens up across its courtyard and fountains into the lawn space is one of the many things I love about the design. I also value the lawn as a bit of greenspace as the CD densifies. Comes across to me as Piano exercising some of that starchitect ego. I’d like to see the design before making too much of it, but it still rubs me the wrong way. What do you think?
It didn’t get much press, and in fact most of the people I know didn’t even hear about it. Nevertheless, the City Council voted in late May to demolish the 7th Street bridge over the Trinity to replace it with a new bridge which will be able to accommodate the Cultural District line of the under-planning modern streetcar system.
A small step towards the streetcar, but a step nonetheless. Looking forward to seeing what they come up with for a replacement design.
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