It’s been a while since the last time I did one of these big development roundups, so let’s do another one, covering the current hotbed of activity - the 7th Street corridor between downtown and the museums. A lot has changed since the last time I wrote about these developments, so let’s dive right in.

Museum Place is really making significant strides in construction these days. The area around the development is a world of torn-up pavement, orange cones, fences, and cranes as work steadily moves from the big 7th/University/Camp Bowie/Bailey intersection back into the neighborhood.

Above, the big building of the development, One Museum Place, is getting more glass installed as its facade installation continues. This building will be home to ground-level retail, office space, and condos on the upper two floors.

[Read more]

Speculation has been running around ever since Chesapeake Energy announced their purchase of the Pier 1 Place skyscraper from Pier 1 Imports that the gas drilling company would relight the building’s distinctive night lighting system, which has been turned off for months due to money troubles at Pier 1 (I took the above photo on February 11, 2007, at which point the lights were still on).

Now, a fairly strong rumor is running around that Chesapeake will be holding an event of some sort on June 9th to relight the tower. Love them or hate them, it looks like the lights of Pier 1 Place (or should that be Chesapeake Plaza?) will once again be shining into the night sky over downtown Fort Worth.

We’ll let y’all know as we learn more.

HDR - High Dynamic Range - Photography involves a bit more work than just aiming and pressing the shutter button. For the uninitiated, HDR photography is the technique of taking multiple photos of a subject with different exposures (allowing different amounts of light onto the camera’s sensor), then blending those separate exposures with a computer to get one photo with a much higher range of definition in light and shadow than is possible with a single photo. A camera can’t see as wide a range of light at once as the human eye - so, if done realistically, these blended exposures can get photography closer to what the eye sees. In effect, you’re making areas of the photo that would otherwise be under or over exposed look correct. You can also go really nuts and make very unreal looking images, but I’ve gone for realism.

It can be a little tricky - significant moving objects tend to fluster the HDR blending software, and a tripod is pretty much essential, since each exposure must be from an identical angle and position for the technique to work.

Here are seven HDR photos I’ve taken in downtown Fort Worth. All were taken with my Canon PowerShot G9, and all are the result of three exposures blended in a piece of software called Photomatix Pro. Click on each for a bigger view.

It’s been another busy week at West & Clear’s sister site Fort Worthology, so here’s some of what’s been going on since last Thursday:

• SoSeven’s rolling along on the Shops & Lofts.
• I took my usual architecture nerd’s perspective in examining a new-construction home of traditional architecture in Fairmount.
• Rumors are afoot - Is the United Way Building coming down? And what might replace it?
• I took another perspective on the Susan Alanis hiring.
• I rolled out a bunch of HDR photos of downtown.
• Finally, I wrote up a huge post today going into detail on the neighborhoods of the Trinity Uptown plan.

In the last few weeks Fort Worth has played host to Main Street Arts Fest, PrairieFest, Fred’s Fest, and Mayfest.

So, if you’ve had your fill of the -fests, you should try something different this weekend: The Fairmount Home Tour. (Of course, if you’re not tired of -fests, then you should make your way over to the Fairmount Home Fest instead. It’s way cooler.)

[Read more]

Another week of posts at West & Clear’s sister site Fort Worthology, and it’s been a busy week in Fort Worth urban development. Here’s some of what’s been going on since last Thursday:

• Another building falls to the Museum Place development - now they’re making way for the Aloft Hotel on Arch Adams between 7th & Camp Bowie.
• So7’s Shops & Lofts are moving ahead at a good clip.
• I took a look at the loft apartments in the Kress Building downtown.
• Finally, I wrote a big roundup on the status of various bits of the Trinity River Vision.

Don’t forget - tonight is Modern ‘Til Midnight, from 6:00 PM to, well, midnight (hence the name). Music will be many and varied - Yellow Fever, The Theater Fire, Trimble Tech High School Marching Band (directed by Earnest Colvin playing a composition by Patrick Grant), PPT, and Strange Fruit Project. Food and drinks. Admission is $15, or FREE for Modern members.

I’ll be there from about 7:30 or so onwards. Look for the guy in the hat, as usual. Say hi!

The area shown in the red circle above is the subject in question - as part of the Museum Place development, a public plaza is will be constructed at the reworked intersection of West 7th Street and Arch Adams (Map). How can a plaza occupy the middle of a street? Read on and find out - it’s an interesting bit of urban design.

The problem is thus - how to create a large public space in the development, while not taking too much room from the buildings themselves? You could certainly close off a street to do so, but you’d have to close off a smaller street, and it’s likely to be too out-of-the-way to get much use. No, the plaza needs to be the heart of the development. That means 7th Street - but you can’t permanently close off 7th. It’s too crucial to the connectivity of the area. A way had to be found to create a large public space that could be closed for events but left open to car traffic the rest of the time - while still slowing traffic enough that people would not feel intimidated by the sometimes speedy pace of cars on 7th.

Finally, an ingenious solution was devised. [Read more]