Fort Worth Inc.
The ribbon cutting: from left, former City Manager David Cooke, former Mayor Betsy Price, City Councilmembers Jared Williams, Chris Nettles, Gyna Bivens, City Manager Jay Chapa, Mayor Mattie Parker, City Councilmembers Elizabeth Beck, Macy Hill, Alan Blaylock, Jeanette Martinez, Carlos Flores, Michael Crain, and Charlie Lauersdorf.
Nearly 25 years to the day that an F3 tornado practically swept Calvary Cathedral off 15 acres on the eastern bank of the Trinity River that runs along Forest Park Boulevard, the city of Fort Worth has formally moved in.
City officials gathered at noontime on Tuesday to rechristen the former Pier 1 building New City Hall and to dedicate the newly constructed City Council Chamber, which hosted its first meeting that morning.
It doubled as a celebration of leaving an outdated 1971 City Hall behind, a place City Manager Jay Chapa compared to "Khrushchyovka,” Khrushchev-era Soviet apartment architecture that featured lots of concrete and few, if any, windows. Call Edward Durrell Stone of New York the Rodney Dangerfield of architects. That 1971 design was met with some derision even then.
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“This building is more than a structure,” Mayor Mattie Parker said. “It truly is a space for the people of Fort Worth. There are tough decisions that face the city in the future and this space is where we'll deliberate together to take on tough challenges, but at the end of the day really do the right thing for the citizens of Fort Worth.”
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The new City Council dais.
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Citizens and city employees take in the new City Council Chamber after the ribbon cutting ceremony.
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City of Fort Worth
New City Hall is just west of downtown, but it fits in perfectly with the downtown skyline.
“I showed up to my interview in 1993,” Chapa said of his first job with the city, a budget analyst position, “and I showed up to the building in Fort Worth. I was like, ‘Man, this is Soviet austere.'”
Goodbye, then. Hello, new home to the City Hall of the Modern West. For the first time in 135 years, City Hall is not in and around the area of Throckmorton and Ninth Streets. The U-Hauls have all been returned. The move is complete.
The building that now comprises the people’s business in Fort Worth is a 450,000-square-foot, 20-story tower.
With lots of windows, Mr. Edward Durrell Stone.
The council chamber, too, has so much natural light, one will never be able to fall asleep during the proceedings. If a tornado comes marching down West Seventh Street again, from the Council Chamber you’ll be able to see it coming.
To the west, the river, Will Rogers’ tower, and Dickies Arena are visible. To the north is the Paddock Viaduct, completed in 1914, and some of downtown is in view.
New City Hall is so pretty that the water bill will be the one you can’t wait to pay if you even up in person. Otherwise, it won’t be any fun at all.
“I was joking earlier today,” Mayor Mattie Parker said. “Many of you know some of these meetings are very contentious. Maybe they’ll be a little nicer with the natural light.”
Ho-ho-ho.
In addition to Chapa and Parker, former Mayor Betsy Price and David Cooke, who appeared tanned, rested, and ready after recently jumping headfirst into retirement, spoke. Former mayors Kenneth Barr and Mike Moncrief were also on hand. So, too, were current and former members of the City Council.
“This building is more than a structure,” Parker said. “It truly is a space for the people of Fort Worth. There are tough decisions that face the city in the future and this space is where we'll deliberate together to take on tough challenges, but at the end of the day really do the right thing for the citizens of Fort Worth.”
The city bought the building in 2020 from Hertz Investment Group. It had an appraised value of $71 million, according to the Tarrant Appraisal District. Cooke, at the time, said the price to buy and renovate would be far less than the estimated $200 million that would have been needed to build a new structure.
Moving into this location consolidated employees working in 12 different locations.
“The [new] council chamber is a symbol of modernization,” Price said. “It's also in typical Fort Worth fashion, a very fiscally responsible thing to do. When COVID hit, David and I, and the rest of the staff and council had all been discussing building a new City Hall because we had totally outgrown our own and it needed major repairs. When this came on the market during COVID, it was a no-brainer to buy. And this council, under Mattie’s leadership, and every one of you have done incredible things with it.”
Also in attendance were officials from the architect on record, BOKA Powell, and Linbeck Group, the contractor. So, too, was Felice Girouard, widow of former Pier 1 Chairman and CEO Marvin Girouard. Felice Girouard helped cut the ribbon.
The building was built and designed to be the corporate headquarters of Pier 1, then under the leadership of Marvin Girouard, who envisioned a structure that stood out but fit in seamlessly with the downtown skyline.
“Marvin picked out each piece of marble, each piece of wood,” said Merianne Roth, today vice chancellor of marketing and communications at TCU but then senior manager of public relations for Pier 1. “He was very involved in every decision that was made. He wanted to invest in a beautiful place where employees loved coming to work and that would be part of the city’s legacy.
“It’s a work of art, reflected in the materials that were chosen and the care taken in the positioning of the building to honor both the city of Fort Worth and the beauty of the river.”
The building was officially unveiled in August 2004. Girouard retired in 2007. Ownership of the building had changed hands multiple times. At one time, it was the Fort Worth headquarters of Chesapeake Energy during the Barnett Shale natural gas rush.
“This was his building,” Parker said of Girouard. “I hope we made Marvin proud. I think that we have.”