Fort Worth Architecture
The renovation of the 16-story former home of the Fort Worth National Bank building is set to begin in August.
The conversion of the 30,000-square-foot tower at 115 W. Seventh St. into 300 apartments is scheduled to begin on Aug. 1 and be completed by the end of August in 2025, according to documents filed with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.
Restaurants on the ground floor, The Capital Grille and Little Red Wasp, as well as PlainsCapital Bank, will remain open during construction. No changes are being made to retail spaces on the first floor.
Price tag for the conversion is estimated to be $30 million, according to the building’s owner, 3L Real Estate of Rosemont, Illinois.
The design firm of record is Bennett Partners of Fort Worth.
The Fort Worth National Bank constructed the tower in 1952. Amon Carter Jr. made the new bank’s first deposit on Aug. 25.
The next week, the bank held an open house, attracting roughly 1,500 bankers from across Texas and the country who came to Fort Worth to tour the building.
Charles E. Maedgen Jr., president of Lubbock National Bank, called the bank a “wonderful asset to Fort Worth and Texas,” according to a report in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
The building was designed by architect Preston M. Geren & Associates of Fort Worth with Shreve, Lamb & Harmon — the design firm of the Empire State Building — as consultants, according to Fort Worth Architecture.
The Fort Worth National Bank had been located across the street in a 24-story building designed by Sanguinet & Stats and erected in 1921. (It is today the Kimpton Harper Hotel at 714 Main St.)
The bank acquired its new site in an agreement with Continental Life Insurance Company, essentially trading the bank building for the insurance company’s title to the property at Seventh and Houston. The exchanged proved the bank with more than half a block in the heart of the central business district.
On part of the property sat the Dundee building, which was demolished to make room.
“This building and the other great buildings that surround us are a living testimonial and tribute to the men and women of other years,” said Herbert B. Fuqua, then chairman of the board of the bank, at the building’s grand opening.
The renovation continues a trend of converting commercial office space downtown into multifamily housing. The Oil & Gas building will also be repurposed as an apartment building.