For the uninitiated, a building known as the Brace Building used to stand at 8th Avenue & Magnolia in the Near Southside.  It was a two-story old mixed-use building that was in rather sad shape after years of neglect.  In late 2008, Comerica Bank announced they were purchasing the building with the intent to demolish it and build a slightly-modified version of a typical Comerica bank branch, reoriented a bit to face the street and with a set of fake windows on top to make it look more old-fashioned.  There was much debate about this plan from us, the nearby Fairmount neighborhood, and Fort Worth South, who has been championing multistory mixed-use infill on Magnolia.

Comerica took the Brace Building down in August of 2009, but agreed to go back to the drawing board on the design.  Behind the scenes, Comerica agreed to hire a Near Southside local architect to come up with a more sensitive design for the site.  Now, that design can be revealed.

The Comerica Building has been designed by the Near Southside’s own Quorum Architects (you may remember them from our profile of the firm).  They have crafted an elegant, very urban structure to house the bank.  Rather than the old plan of having fake “second floor” windows a la many new suburban “town square” buildings, the Comerica Building will be a full two stories tall.  As a compromise from Comerica’s earlier “single story only” intent, when in use by Comerica, the building will not feature a functioning second floor, instead featuring a two-story-tall ceiling with lots of light from both levels of windows.  However, the building has been design so that, should Comerica vacate the space, a functioning second floor can be added relatively easily in the upper space to create likely second floor residential units.

The building complies with the Near Southside urban design standards, is fully urban in form, and features a strong presence along both streets, as well as featuring a classic cut corner entrance.  All parking is to the rear or on-street.  In addition, the north facade facing the rear parking and bank drive-through has been designed to be as detailed as the street facades, creating an attractive appearance from further north along 8th as well.  That rear parking/drive-through area is also heavily screened by a decorative fence and plantings to avoid impacting the pedestrian experience too much, and the drive-through shelter is designed in a matching style.  Along Magnolia, the building features a wide, tree-lined brick sidewalk, and the corner features a large brick entry plaza-like space.  The building also features extensive ground-floor windows to ensure transparency of the facade as prescribed by the Near Southside design standards.

We are frankly very surprised by how this building has turned out.  Quorum has knocked this one out of the park in our opinion.  Though the Brace Building is long gone now, this new building looks to hold down the important corner of 8th & Magnolia with a similar level of grace and is a fully urban structure with great compliance with the Near Southside urban design standards.  The design strikes a good compromise between Comerica’s desire for a single-use structure and Fort Worth South’s desire for a mixed-use structure by being easily adaptable to mixed-use should the bank eventually leave, and in the meantime giving from the exterior a true two-story structure with real windows to help create the sense of enclosure by building facade that is key to an urban streetscape.  Fort Worth South is recommending to the Urban Design Commission that the building be approved, and we think we have to join them in this recommendation.  Kudos to Comerica for showing the willingness to create a far more appropriate structure for an urban setting, and to Quorum for what looks like an outstanding job of urban design.

For more views, click the thumbnails.

Edit:  We couldn’t stand the thought of this great comment from Michael H. just hanging out in the comments, so here it is:   Read the rest of this entry »

A quick update on another small mixed-use building going up in the Near Southside.  This is the Bajaj Building, on Lipscomb just north of Rosedale.  It’s lofts upstairs and medical offices downstairs.

The building’s facade has been going up for a while now.  New is the popped-out corner window treatment there on the right.  The building was designed by the Near Southside’s own TMA Architects, who have done many of these single-lot mixed-use buildings.

(Photo by John Roberts, fortwortharchitecture.com)

Fantastic news for Fort Worth historic preservation!  What is commonly called the “Daiches Building” sits at Houston & Weatherford in Downtown, right across the street from the Tarrant County Courthouse.  So-called for the jewelry store that has inhabited its ground floor for the last 81 years, the building was built in 1910 and is basically the only original “courthouse square” structure still standing in even somewhat original condition.  It was given a ground-floor modernizing in 1955 (when the blue mosaic tile was added), but otherwise looks totally original, if rather shabby.

With Joe Daiches relocating, there were many fears among Fort Worth preservationists and urbanists that the little building would be plowed into the ground for a parking lot, has happened to two neighboring buildings not many years ago.  We are very happy to report, though, that the building will live on.  We were contacted today by commercial real estate broker David Tuttle, who is announcing that he and investor Darwin German have acquired the building and  are restoring it to its original condition for adaptive re-use.

The building’s 1955 ground floor remodeling will be removed, and the entire original appearance restored.  Upstairs, the 2nd and 3rd floor were a hotel until the 1970s and have been vacant since.  Describing the 2nd and 3rd floor as being “like a time capsule,” the original suites still include tons of original details, including original doors, transom windows, hardware, wood floors, chair rails, molding and tin ceiling tiles.

The plan is to restore the 2nd and 3rd floors and lease the suites as office space with all the modern amenities.  It is intended that the ground floor be leased as retail space – ideally, the owners want to see a coffee shop or sandwich place go in.

This is a great victory for Fort Worth historic preservation, and it’s also a great victory to keep this building active and engaged with its surroundings instead of becoming another blank parking lot.  We are looking forward to seeing the building’s restoration progress and hope to bring you photos as it goes.

Color us not suprised:

The Dallas developer that owns City Place — the high-profile redevelopment of the Tandy Center twin towers in downtown Fort Worth — has put the property on the block.

A year ago, PNL Cos. put the vacant, 19-story One City Place tower at Third and Taylor streets up for sale. PNL’s original plan was to make that tower a condo building when the anchor tenant, RadioShack, moved out several years ago.

But now, Jones Lang LaSalle, the real estate broker representing PNL, said it might be easier to sell the 1.2 million-square-foot project in its entirety, not in pieces. The time to sell is right, the broker said, because credit is loosening in commercial markets and real estate investment funds are ready to start spending again.

We’ve been thinking for a while that the City Place project had stalled, given how each plan from PNL became progressively less and less impressive as time went on.  Most recently, they had abandoned the plan to demolish part of the old Tandy Center mall and re-open 2nd Street through the project – which was one going to be one of the more positive aspects of the plan, as the huge Tandy Center superblock seriously breaks up pedestrian patterns and getting 2nd back would have helped tremendously to re-open that part of Downtown and make it more walkable and connected.  (The image above is from the initial, much more impressive redevelopment plan, with 2nd re-opened and a better mix of uses.)  Will be interesting to see how quickly the property sells and what its eventual new owners plan to do with it – here’s hoping that the re-opening of 2nd Street and the outward-facing street level retail (not the existing mall style space) will be a part of the plan.

Yet another example of a small mixed-use structure is now under construction in the Near Southside.  This development, at Grainger & Cannon (just a couple of blocks from West Leuda Park), will feature a ground-floor office for Dr. Chunduri’s neurology clinic, and two apartments on the second floor.  It was designed by Gary Wood Architects.

The site is located in one of the Near Southside’s T4-N (for “Neighborhood”) zones.  The T4-N zoning requires all development to include a residential component (either residences as part of a mixed-use project, or entirely residential).  This helps ensure a wide range of housing choices and prevents monotonous commercial-only development, makes streets safer by providing round-the-clock use and more “eyes on the street,” and creates greater density of residences to give more support to local businesses as the district redevelops.

Below is an elevation drawing of the finished building:

At last night’s West 7th Spring Bash, Mayor Moncrief and representatives of developer Cypress Equities were on hand to officially cut the ribbon on the big new mixed-use development.  Prior to the ribbon cutting, Mayor Moncrief spoke about the development, reiterating several of the points from his State of the City address – that Fort Worth must continue to encourage central-city growth with denser, walkable mixed-use developments rather than solely continue to sprawl.

Cypress shut down Crockett Street between Currie and Norwood, giving plenty of space for attendees to stroll around in a car-free setting.  Residents of the lofts upstairs were out on their balconies having their own parties and waving to Spring Bash attendees below.  Bars were set up in the central plaza, and of course the retailers open thus far were open and encouraging people to visit (Cypress, in fact, gave the mayor a pair of boots from Heritage Boots, one of the development’s ground-floor retailers).  Newly opened Terra Mediterranean Grill was showing off their very cool outdoor bar on Crockett, set up to face the sidewalk.  At the end of the block, a stage was set up where the band Reckless Kelly performed throughout the night.

It was a fun event and a great way to officially open the West 7th development.  Congrats to Cypress Equities on this impressive project – we look forward to seeing how it matures and continues to build out the remaining blocks and fill the last tenant spaces.

Just a reminder that the Spring Bash at the West 7th development is tonight from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM.  There will be a ribbon cutting for the development, a performance by the band Reckless Kelly, a beer garden, and more.  It will be held on Crockett between the two loft/retail buildings.  The event benefits Cook Children’s Hospital.  For more info, check our last post on the Spring Bash.

The Near Southside wave of small mixed-use infill developments continues.  This example is going up on St. Louis just south of Pennsylvania, right down the street from the nearly-complete new West Leuda Park (as well as the Leuda-May Apartments and Hattie May Inn, as well as just around the corner from the Rahr Brewery).

This building is another loft-apartment-over-medical-office development, of the kind that is becoming very popular in the Near Southside.  There will likely be even more to come – these small (often single-lot) mixed-use infill structures are a really interesting aspect of the Near Southside’s revitalization.

The redevelopment of the building on Hemphill just off the corner of Magnolia & Hemphill that will be home to the Near Southside’s new police station is well underway.  The police station, currently in the ground floor of the building at College & Magnolia that houses Mamma Mia, The Salon Upstairs, Urban Green Build, and other tenants, is relocating to this larger facility and is bringing the gang unit (who had to move out of their old home on University after Botanical Research Institute took it over) with them.

Most people are probably familiar with the building as it has sat for many years – an ugly, blank concrete box with a handful of tiny windows.  It has long been an eyesore in the Near Southside, especially right off the ongoing revitalization success of Magnolia Avenue.  This development will finally do something about all that ugly – the project is completely revamping the exterior of the building to be compatible with the Near Southside’s urban design standards.  Already, many new windows have been punched in the formerly blank concrete walls.  As the project continues, the building will gain an all-new facade divided up into three bays, making its appearance more compatible with the classic urban buildings of Magnolia.

What isn’t as obvious is the lengthy, oddball history of this building.  From the street, the building is a dreary 1970s box, which is the result of additions and remodeling done in the ’70s to an existing building on the site.  You see, buried within all that ugly concrete is a building from around 1903.

The original building inside, one of the traditional urban structures which used to line the major streets of the Near Southside before demolitions and parking lots took over, was originally a Texas National Guard Armory and post office.  In the ’70s, Hemphill was widened from its older, narrower, more human-scaled form, and the old Armory had its street facade removed to accommodate the widening.  At that time, additions were made and everything was unified behind the blank concrete facade that’s been there ever since.

Hints of the building’s past are visible, however – most notably in the alley.  If you go around back and look at that side (the east side), you’ll see the concrete facade on each end, but in the center you can still see the original alley facade of the Armory, complete with arched windows and more.

This project will result in a major eyesore being transformed into a much more attractive and urban-compatible form, as well as the consolidation and expansion of the FWPD station and gang unit.  We’re looking forward to seeing how the building looks as the renovations progress.

Yes, truly, this is a new doctor’s office building being built on Hemphill just south of Magnolia in the Near Southside.  The building will feature a brick facade with arched windows on the second floor.  We believe the architect on this one is Ray Boothe.

At the moment, we don’t have a rendering available of the finished building, but what we have seen looks promising.  It’s great to see the ongoing infill development in the Near Southside now spreading out along Hemphill as well.