Alex Lepe
Fran McCarthy was 25 and managing construction of nationally branded retail stores in California when he took a promotion and moved to Fort Worth. He found, among other things, a dead downtown. “For a while, I thought Joe T’s was the only restaurant in town,” he says. But it was at Joe T’s where McCarthy figured something else out about Fort Worth. “You could sit down at Joe T’s and be sitting next to the mayor,” he says. That’s still the same. “To me, it’s remarkable that a small-time businessman can be as active as they want in the future of the city. Everybody’s accessible. Your opinion is at least listened to.” McCarthy, who will turn 63 in February, has enjoyed a robust career in construction and real estate development in Cowtown, founding Westwood Contractors and doing build-to-suits for chains like Pier 1 Imports before selling it and moving into urban redevelopment, focusing on the Near Southside. McCarthy has become an expert in using federal and state historic tax credits to shore up what would otherwise be non-viable projects, and other property owners have brought him on as a consultant and sometimes investor.
His portfolio includes the Newkirk Building at West Magnolia Avenue and South Main Street, Modern Village and Fort Worth National Bank Building at West MagnoliaAvenue and Hemphill Street, Original Fire Station No. 5 at Bryan and Pennsylvania avenues, the B. Max Mehl Building at West Magnolia Avenue and Henderson Street, and the Banks Building at Eighth Avenue and Allen Street.
“You’d walk down Magnolia, and you could see downtown, and buildings and land were so cheap,” he says of his first impressions years ago.
What are you up to these days? I finished one, I’ve got one downtown (Fort Worth), three in Ennis, and we’re looking at one in San Antonio. The plan is to use historic tax credits to revitalize these buildings.
Game-changer: Texas’ historic credits, approved by the Legislature in recent years The federal credits (up to 20 percent of eligible expense) are hard to use and very expensive. State (up to 25 percent of eligible expense) is much easier to use and much less expensive. On the state, you can monetize them much easier. On the federal, you can only sell them to somebody who’s an owner in the project.
Why the consulting work these days? Getting older – I’ll be 63 in February – and not wanting as much risk in a historic preservation project. So this gives me an opportunity to still enjoy projects.
What’s your downtown Fort Worth project? 907 Houston St. (next to Peter Bros. Hats). It used to be called Tribeca Bar, and now it’s going to be retail and office. I’m consulting on it. I put the pro forma together, oversee the design, work with the bank on the financing, hire the general contractor and oversee the construction.
Why Ennis? There were three buildings that were hit by a tornado. I’m a partner in that one. We exported Finn MacCool’s from Eighth Avenue (in Fort Worth), and they’re opening a second location in Ennis. You’ve got a town of 15,000, you’re close to two freeways, and you’re not far from Corsicana and Waxahachie, and you’re not far from Dallas. They’re creating a destination.