I’ve been to some desolate places - Roswell, New Mexico, for example. Here’s a town that’s literally in the middle of a scrubby, rocky desert, a place that should drive most men mad. And in fact, it has done exactly that; Roswell, like, say, Weatherford, has three Sonics. Two of these, though, had no drive-in component, yet still retained the “America’s Drive-In” signage. Madness on multiple levels, that, well and truly. Take a jaunt much beyond Main Street in Roswell and you vanish into the desert like a mirage. I know - I’ve done it. Limbo sends its regards, by the way.

(Yes, Limbo is in the desert outside of Roswell, NM. For the curious, Purgatory is in Dallas, which explains a lot, really; Hades, then, must surely be Arlington.)

Desolate can mean a lot of things, but few places compare at the moment to West 7th Street here in Fort Worth, between downtown and the museums. If you’ve been there lately (and I’m guessing most of you in Readershipland have), you may have noticed something: it’s all gone. Really. It looks like a practice arena for the Vogons. It is as if the heavens themselves were sundered in twain and a great maelstrom wiped the neighborhood from the map - except for the Montgomery Ward building, of course, which has proven that it can survive anything. (It’ll still be around for the damn dirty apes to use when they take over, I’m sure, and they’ll use the hole in the middle to string up Charleton Heston for sport.)

Thing is, though, the current destruction and desolation is serving a larger purpose. West 7th, after what seemed like generations of underwhelmtion (if that’s not a word, it should be), is booming like nobody’s business. Today, I’d like to take you on a trip down the street and show you what’s coming that will turn West 7th into one of the coolest urban corridors anywhere.

The development occuring on 7th (except for the back half of Montgomery Plaza - a rant on that in a moment) follows the principles of New Urbanism, an urban planning methodology that seeks a return to more traditional pre-war development patterns by promoting mixed uses, putting buildings right up against the sidewalk, and placing emphasis on pedestrians over car traffic. These developments will help create a denser, walkable environment on 7th that will allow more people to live, work, and play in easy walking distance from many destinations and to spend less of their time attached to their cars, not to mention creating a better environment for our eventual modern streetcar system that’s in the planning (see here and here for more on that).

Before we get into specifics, here’s a nifty little map I made for You, the Readers, to give a basic overview of what’s happening at the moment on West 7th:

The legend is thus:

• Red - Montgomery Plaza
• Yellow - So7
• Green - Presidio
• Light Blue - Untitled Cypress Equities Development
• Darker Blue - West 7th by Cypress Equities
• Orange - Museum Place

Worry not, for all shall become clear soon. Let’s get started with the most obvious:

Montgomery Plaza

Strictly speaking, the Montgomery Plaza development as a whole is not new. The project’s been open for a while now, and has been fairly successful despite being saddled with some very unfortunate design choices by the original development team. The historic Montgomery Ward building had a hole carved into it to serve as a gateway to the back of the property; here, the old warehouse/loading dock complex was demolished, but instead of doing some proper design work and building something truly great the developers took a typical Burleson strip mall and fancied it up with some Mission Revival detailings, encircling a vast ocean of parking. From an urban design standpoint, it’s nothing but a giant cup of fail. The rear of the development is a pavement wasteland dominated by speeding SUVs, and a complete waste of property. Just look at how much land is consumed by parking lots compared to how much is leasable space, and you’ll see just one of my many, many problems with modern suburban design. It was a completely inappropriate use of land in a central city location, and its only saving grace is that it brought a Super Target to the city core. There were many ways to make it better, but the developers took the cheap & cheesy way out.

That all being said, the redevelopment of the actual Montgomery Ward building is grand. If you think of the two parts of the property as being on seperate universe planes, it’s a lot more tolerable. The Montgomery Ward building itself is already home to several retailers, but the reason I’m including it now is that the long-awaited condo portion of the project is at last underway. The gutted upper floors of the building are now being stuffed with luxury living spaces and two levels of parking, while the rooftops will become swanky decks with pools, hot tubs, cabanas, and all manner of other such luxo goods. Construction is now underway, so if you’ve been wondering why an entire column of windows on the building’s east side have been removed, it’s to facilitate construction on the inside.

An example of one of the condos:

The aforementioned rooftop deck. Incidentally, that spirally thing to the right of the cabanas? That’s a shower, which automatically glows softly when occupied. Swank, thy name is Fort Worth.

Floorplans range from 946 square feet to over 4,600 square feet, with prices ranging from the mid $200,000s to over $1 million. If you’re interested, better not linger - they’re apparently over 70% sold already.

Presidio

Across Carroll Street to the west, Centex’s CityHomes division (who are building the Westview condos in downtown on Henderson between the Firestone and AMLI Upper West Side apartments) has announced Presidio, a new townhome development that will replace a former barbed-wire fenced parking lot. Seems like a nice trade, no? Presidio will be of some fashion of Mission Revival-esque architecture, with stucco and red tile and all the other things that go along with that.

Presidio will consist of 20 two- and three-story three-bedroom townhomes of between 1,800 and 2,000 square feet. My sources did not give any information on Presidio’s price point yet, so we only have speculation. Westview, the other CityHomes development here in the Panther City, is one of the more affordable developments in downtown, with units starting in the $150k range, so it will be interesting to see how CityHomes positions their second Fort Worth development.

By the way, across the street from the Presidio site is the old Gernsbacher’s restaurant supply store building, which is now being turned into…a church. That’s right, Fellowship Church has bought the old warehouse and is already underway in creating a “Satellite Worship Center,” which is either a facility for remotely-broadcasted sermons from their main facility elsewhere, or a place where people give sacrifices to an impressive altar of Sputnik. My money’s on the latter, personally.

So7

So7, which is short for “South of Seventh,” is a large mixed-use project going in at the edge of Trinity Park. The project is being built over the course of about a million phases, which have been ongoing for some time. In an effort to make sure all the land got used, the developer has been working from the back of the property to the front, so only recently has any progress noticeable from 7th been underway.

Phase 1 of the development was a Marriott Residence Inn built on Stayton & Museum Way (a new street built for the development). At the same time, Phase 2 kicked off with the construction of severa blocks of Mediterranean-style townhomes centered around a new roundabout intersection with a fountain in the middle:

Phase 3 started earlier in the year, as the ArtHouse condos between the townhomes and the Residence Inn got underway. The ArtHouse portion features a more modern architecture style in contrast to the Mediterranean look of the townhomes.

Phase 4 got moving not long after, with initial site prep behind the Residence Inn for The Stayton, a retirement condo development. The Stayton will be a complex of three ten-story towers nestled between Museum Way and the Lancaster bridge. No rendering is available as yet of this portion of the project, which is expected to open in 2010.

The final segment of So7 has also been the most anticipated, for it will be the most visible: the Shops & Lofts at So7. In a complex of mixed-use structures stretching from 7th Street to the Residence Inn, the Shops & Lofts will feature hundreds of loft condos over retail space, which will front 7th, Stayton, and new streets being added for the development, all arrayed around the sort of plazas and fountains found in the early So7 developments. A look at how the buildings will appear from 7th Street:

Currently, crews are excavating for the Shops & Lofts. Not a lot of tenants have been announced for the retail portion of the project, but one that has is Primo’s, the grill from Uptown Dallas.

Untitled Cypress Equities Development

Not much to say about this one - the former auto glass store on the property was torn down around the same time as a lot of the demolition work for the other Cypress development, West 7th, was going on. Word is that this site will be home to a mixed-use multistory office or bank building of urban design.

West 7th by Cypress Equities

Cypress Equities is currently underway on West 7th, a large mixed-use development bounded by 7th, University, Morton, and Foch. The entirety of the old Acme Brick headquarters property is included in this development. Nearly everything on the blocks involved, basically with the sole exception of Fred’s along with a handful of other structures, is being demolished for this development, including all of Acme’s old buildings. The development will include extensive retail space, new seven-story office buildings, and 345 apartments in a dense, mixed-use environment.

Extensive demolition and construction work is already underway. The Acme buildings are the last to be brought down, but as you read this heavy equipment is already chewing away at them. The rest of the blocks have been cleared and construction is underway.

Some of the tenants either rumor or confirmed for West 7th include a seven-screen movie theater operated by Movie Tavern, L.A. Fitness, Fireside Pies (a pizza cafe), Brut (wine gallery), Tom Tom, Iron Cactus, and Splitsville (a high-end bowling/cafe/bar/sushi place). Here’s a look at what West 7th will be like when completed:

Museum Place

Rounding out the major development is Museum Place, perhaps the biggest one of them all. Museum Place is an 11-acre development that radiates out from the big University/7th/Camp Bowie/Bailey intersection and will radically change the “gateway” to the museums and downtown. It will feature 173,000 square feet of ground-level retail space, 130,000 square feet of Class A office space, an Aloft hotel, 40 purchasable condos, 500 rental apartments, and a new Post Office designed by Pritzker Prize winning architects Venturi, Scott Brown, and Associates.

(As an aside, the Museum Place Post Office means that Fort Worth’s Cultural District will feature architecture by an astonishing four Pritzker Prize winners: Philip Johnson (the Amon Carter Museum, along with the Water Gardens), Tadao Ando (The Modern), Robert Venturi (Museum Place Post Office), and Renzo Piano (the upcoming expansion to the Kimbell). The Pritzker Prize is considered the Nobel Prize of architecture. It’s also considered the world over to be all but certain that Louis Kahn (of the original Kimbell) would have won a Pritzker had he lived to see the award introduced, so in essence we’ll have five examples of the work of such world-class architects here in Fort Worth, all within a few blocks of each other.)

The new Post Office, which is going up where University and Bailey come together. The tornado-bent billboard poles are being reused as part of the public plaza in front of the building:

Also around the big intersection are these two buildings, which will house most of the office space. The building on the right is currently going vertical between Bailey and 7th, while the triangular Flatiron-style building will occupy the slice of land between 7th & Camp Bowie formerly occupied by a Texaco:

The building on the right will house retail, office, and condo space. It’s currently under construction - the two big cranes looming over the intersection are for this building. Meanwhile, here’s a newer rendering of the triangular building.

The rest of Museum Place will be a mixture of various types of building, all of which will feature residential over retail. One in particular is interesting - the existing 7-11 at 7th & Arch Adams is being torn down for one of the new Museum Place buildings, and it’s moving to another Museum Place building:

7-11 is reimagining their presence as a “corner store” type of establishment, rather than a typical gas station/convenience store. They’re integrating very well with the new design - here are a couple of renderings of what the finished product will look like.

Pretty much everything else in the development zone is being demolished, including the old Wreck Room club and the current Post Office.

The historic building that houses the Great Outdoors, however, is not part of the project and is not being demolished - but its parking lot is being replaced by an extension of Barden Street, and will feature on-street parking.

The rest of the project will be between 4-6 stories tall and look something like these renderings, with large public plazas, and traffic calming devices such as on-street parking and special intersection paving to help keep speeding cars to a minimum.

The Future

Now, this isn’t everything going on around our museums. My intent here was to showcase the major projects that are transforming the 7th corridor between the museums and downtown, but it’s likely these are only the beginning. With city planning director Fernando Costa’s Urban Village Program continuing to draw attention from developers, I’m betting we’ll see even more development along 7th. And when the city finally gets the streetcar system up and running, it’ll spur even more interest.

One area I’d keep an eye on is the so-called “Left Bank” property along the river north of 7th. At least until recently, this land was owned by local architect & developer Ken Schaumburg (of Le Bijou/Schaumburg Lofts/Magnolia Green/etc. fame), but I’ve heard rumors of a sale recently. Whatever the case, Left Bank may be home to major developments in the future. Back the other direction, the established neighborhoods to the west of University along 7th are seeing renewed interest in the form of numerous condo & townhome developments now underway, such as the Village Homes/Ken Schaumburg collaboration Hilltop.

As the city continues its urban renaissance, the Cultural District will continue to redevelop. There’s big changes ahead, not only for the Cultural District but for all of Fort Worth’s urban neighborhoods (such as downtown, Fort Worth South, Six Points, and the like). I think that history will look back on these days as the time period when Fort Worth really started to come into its own as the big city that it’s been denying it is for some time, and while big change is not without its stresses, the end result will be a more livable city.

It’s going to be one heck of a ride.

Join the Discussion: Most Commented Posts

• March 12, 2009 -- City Council Elections Shape Up
• August 17, 2008 -- A Conversation with Jerry Horton
• June 30, 2008 -- Eighth Avenue Showdown Postponed
• March 7, 2008 -- Stop Drilling on Eighth Avenue, Sign the Petition
• July 29, 2008 -- Discuss: Wendy Davis vs. Kim Brimer
• January 9, 2008 -- Will There Be A Lone Star International Film Festival In 2008?
• March 13, 2008 -- More West 7th Tenants Announced
• May 11, 2009 -- Goodbye To A River
• April 4, 2008 -- Berkeley, Mistletoe, and Ryan Place: Are You ready for this?
• September 25, 2008 -- Fort Worth Weekly Best of 2008 Awards