West 7th, once Fort Worth’s ‘unloved’ industrial side, is rapidly becoming its ritziest

Two decades ago, it may have been tough to imagine Fort Worth’s West Seventh Street as a live, work and play district home to luxury hotels, high-end apartments and fine-dining restaurants.

The area that has today evolved into the Cultural District was once largely industrial space well acquainted with warehouse brick manufacturing and dusty trucks passing through. It wasn’t the “most desirable” part of the city, real estate experts say, and not everyone realized its full potential just west of downtown off the Trinity River bed.

After years of development and transformation across the district, two new luxury hotels are the latest momentum generators for growth in Fort Worth’s Cultural District.

The Bowie House hotel opens Friday with a signature suite starting at $6,000 per night. It includes a high-end steakhouse, and the property will eventually include seven townhomes for purchase.

The 200-room Crescent Fort Worth Hotel held a soft opening last month. Rooms in November started around $450 per night on weekends. The property’s Canyon Ranch Wellness Club is opening soon, and a second phase of the development will eventually bring 170,000 square feet of office space and nearly 170 luxury apartments to the area.

The Crescent Fort Worth and Bowie House may be among the latest catalysts of growth, but there’s plenty more development in the pipeline.

[MORE: Take a sneak peek into one of Fort Worth’s newest luxury hotels]

Chris Doggett, executive vice president at Dallas-based Stream Realty Partners, said there has been a lack of interest to develop high-end office space in the Cultural District through the years, but it is arguably the best place to develop in Fort Worth right now.

Doggett pointed to the Crescent’s success in leasing up office space before even opening, and said it shows there is strong demand for more in Fort Worth.

“What Crescent has done, they’ve knocked it out of the park and delivered,” Doggett said. “This is a real formula, and we’re in dire need of that.”

On West Seventh at Foch Street will soon be another mixed-use project, the Van Zandt.

The midrise property owned by Goldenrod Companies will have roughly 99,000 square feet of office space, 10,000 square feet of retail space, 226 apartments and a 500-space garage.

Doggett said Stream Realty, which is leasing the property, is in “deep negotiations” with interested groups and receiving “all kinds of inquiries and interest.”

“If we were vertical right now, it wouldn’t be soon enough,” Doggett said.

Goldenrod also has a second project along University Drive and Morton Street in the works, on a mostly vacant block across University from the Modern Art Museum. One University will have 100,000 square feet of office space, 10,000 square feet of retail space, 240 apartments, an 800-space parking garage and a 175-room hotel. Construction is expected to begin in March 2024 at both properties.

Fort Worth City Council Member Elizabeth Beck said projects like the Crescent, Bowie House and Van Zandt are “indicative” of what Fort Worth will continue to see in the area’s future with similar types of mixed-use developments.

“We want to maintain an entertainment district, but I think that as you start to see more of this mixed-use development coming on board, the perception and how we define West Seventh will shift from a ‘bar district’ into a lively place to live, work and play,” Beck said.

Cullen Donohue, a senior associate in Stream Realty’s Fort Worth division, said the Cultural District is desirable for office tenants because of the opportunities nearby. As more employers push for the return to in-office work following the pandemic, an office’s quality and surroundings have become more important to tenants.

“There’s now a focus on getting employees back in the office with highly amenitized office space with real focus on walkability,” Donohue said. “Places where people can go walk to lunch or meet with clients were really elevated.”

Half a mile north of the future Van Zandt sits the Foundry District, a 14-building complex with an outdoor alleyway covered in more than 70 pieces of art.

Stream Realty began leasing the property in 2018 and has seen strong demand for the space over the past five years. During the firm’s first 12 months, the property leased up to more than 96%, and it has remained at 90% since then, Donohue said.

Property tenants include everything from a vintage record shop to a yoga studio to a brewery to engineering and real estate office space.

“(The Foundry District) is a really cool vibe you don’t get anywhere else in Fort Worth,” Donohue said.

Farther down the street, Dallas-based real estate development firm Lang Partners has plans for a $60 million apartment complex east of Montgomery Plaza and the Left Bank shopping center. The five-story Carter House is expected to span 350,000 square feet. It will bring 331 apartment units and a 412-space parking garage to the corner of Harrold and West Fifth streets.

Dirik Oudt, co-founder of Lang Partners, said the firm is ready to proceed with construction as soon as financing is available given the state of the construction lending market. The firm has been investing in Fort Worth’s West Seventh area since it acquired the former Acme Brick headquarters in the early 2000s.

“Historically, the entire West Seventh corridor was a relatively unloved part of Fort Worth for a very long period of time,” Oudt said. “That all changed around the 2005 time frame when all of a sudden people realized the potential for that undeveloped part of town. The entire area was something that we saw the potential in very early on.”

For several years, the industrial neighborhood that came with big trucks and lots of manufacturing dust wasn’t seen as “attractive” for redevelopment, Oudt said.

“Once that big user was removed from the neighborhood and now you had a large-scale, redevelopment opportunity, all of a sudden the lights turned on for Fort Worth residents,” Oudt said.

Some have said that the 2000 tornado that leveled a large swath of industrial buildings behind Montgomery Plaza provided an opportunity to think differently about redevelopment. The nearby Linwood neighborhood, where the F2 twister crushed homes, would begin to slowly transform into town homes and apartments.

Oudt said growth in the Cultural District is a “momentum game” at this point with people willing to make more permanent investments in the neighborhood. He thinks the quality of investments is only going to increase.

“Our project, in particular, is a response to the fact that we really see an opportunity that’s missing in the market for the top end of the market,” Oudt said. “To have something in that neighborhood that is a real classic, timeless development, that’s what we’re trying to accomplish.”

Some experts say Dickies Arena, opened in 2019 on Montgomery Street, has been another big catalyst for investment in the Cultural District and Camp Bowie areas.

Scott Wilcox, chairman of Fort Worth’s Cultural District Alliance, said the arena’s construction spurred growth and redevelopment of more apartments, condominiums and restaurants nearby.

“After (Dickies), all the other developers saw an opportunity to provide hotels or other types of apartments or condos to help serve the entertainment venues that were going to be out there,” Wilcox said.

Wilcox doesn’t see that growth slowing down anytime soon.

“Dickies kind of amped up the speed on some of the rest of it,” Wilcox said.

Wilcox said he thinks more high-end restaurants and retail will follow.

“I don’t think there’s been a ton of that as of yet, but I think it will come,” Wilcox said.

One high-profile new restaurant that’s already on the way is the new $6 million Fort Worth location of Lockhart-based Terry Black’s Barbecue, going on West Seventh on the site of a former Wendy’s.

Wilcox also thinks property along Montgomery Street is “prime to be redeveloped” and said plans to revitalize the area are in discussion.

Crescent Real Estate — the firm behind the Crescent Fort Worth — plans to improve the streets along Camp Bowie Boulevard between Montgomery and University Drive.

“It’s going to look and feel much richer, and the traffic will be slowed down,” said John Goff, chairman of Crescent Real Estate. “It’s going to be more pedestrian friendly. That’s really going to be helpful to allow the restaurants, our hotel, Canyon Ranch and our office building all to interact with the Cultural District in a more safe and, frankly, beautiful manner.”

French chef Bernard Tronche, who opened West Seventh’s Saint-Emilion Restaurant nearly 40 years ago, said change in the area has been a long time in the making.

He recalled highs and lows over the years — times when nearby businesses were flourishing and times when some neighboring shops shuttered their doors. And sometimes, growth wasn’t for the best, Tronche said.

“The growth of the city, there’s been ups and downs following the economy,” Tronche said. “You can’t really have a typical year. We managed to stay open because it’s my business, it’s my livelihood, I did my best to keep it up and keep it going.”

As West Seventh’s bar scene grew over recent years, Tronche said, noise and crime negatively impacted the area surrounding his restaurant.

“I wouldn’t say that is beneficial to our type of restaurant,” Tronche said.

Tronche said he sold his building to UNTHSC several years ago and expects the university will eventually need his property for development. But until then, he thinks development of the Crescent could bring more customers.

“I think it’s going to balance out and help Seventh Street compete with downtown a little bit more as far as where people stay, go out and dine,” Tronche said.

Lydia Rickard, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Camp Bowie District, Inc., grew up in the area and saw the district “organically evolve” away from its warehouse and industrial use.

“If we don’t put the proper processes and procedures in place, then growth is going to explode without any kind of limitation,” Rickard said. “That then can result in things like displacement placement, gentrification and the loss of our historical value.”

Rickard said her organization’s goal is to find the “harmony” between creating a strong tourist district while blending the new with the old.

“We’re in conversations all the time with property owners and developers to say, ‘What are you thinking about? What is a good use for our space as well, to where we can maintain that balance of what our residential communities need versus what our tourist community needs?’ So that’s a real focus for me as we move forward,” Rickard said.

Nenetta Carter Tatum, granddaughter of Amon G. Carter Sr. and board member at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, said she’s lived in Fort Worth her entire life and has seen the Cultural District completely change.

“There used to be nice restaurants and people flocked down there, because it was new, but now it’s just this big bar scene,” Tatum said.

Tatum said she thinks the hotels will be good for Fort Worth, though she has seen new things come and go since the museum opened in 1961.

“Whether it’s good or bad, the West Seventh area has growth,” Tatum said. “There’s more apartments, hotels and definitely more visitors.”

She said she hopes hotels like the Crescent Fort Worth and Bowie House will draw visitors to the Carter and other museums like The Modern, The Kimball and the Cowgirl Hall of Fame.

“I think all this energy and building is beneficial to everybody, but the museums are going to go on and keep doing their thing whether the hotels or restaurants are there or not,” Tartum said. “I hope it helps the museums.”