33 replies to this topic

[FortWorthology]

Just a couple of updates - the big retail/office/condo building between 7th & Bailey is already going vertical.  They're moving quickly:





I've also been able to get ahold of a newer rendering of the Flatiron-style building going onto the triangular plot where Camp Bowie and 7th split:

[krazeeboi]

Very contemporary form for a flatiron building, but still a bit on the boring side. I do wish that the corner portion wasn't a big blank white wall, though. What type of building will this be? It looks like it will have reflective glass with only one entrance at the ground level from this angle, which isn't good as far as urban form goes.

[FortWorthology]

It is supposed to be all office up top, and last I heard it would have ground-floor retail as well.

[FortWorthology]

The big office/condo/retail building continues heading upward:





Meanwhile, the new 7-Eleven Corner Store/condo building further in is now getting its facade:



Demolition equipment is moving in to several other blocks now as well.

[FortWorthology]

The big building, One Museum Place, continues marching skyward.  The building will feature ground-floor retail, office space in the middle, and two floors of condos on the top.



The site of the glassy Flatiron-style building across the street has now been cleared and prepped.  Work should be underway soon on this new building, which will feature ground-level retail under multiple floors of office space.



The nasty old stripmall where Pro Cuts and Auto Restyling Center were located has now been flattened.  This site will be home to a mixed-use building featuring ground-level retail under residential space, surrounding a hidden parking structure and interior courtyards.



This small building at the back, home of the first confirmed Museum Place retail tenant, is nearing completion.  The ground floor will be a 7-11 corner store (replacing the conventional 7-11 across the street, which will be demolished for more mixed-use development), and the upper floors will be condos.  You can also see some new infill townhomes on the right side of the photo.

Here's an updated overview of the project's layout:

[FortWorthology]

Current official tenant list - plenty more to come:

Aloft Hotel
7-Eleven
Potbelly
La Duni
Village Tavern
Celebrity Bakery
Legacy Bank
Domain
Eddie V.'s Edgewater Grill
Nicolas
Ra Sushi

Edited by FortWorthology, 13 March 2008 - 10:37 AM.

[FortWorthology]

Museum Place update:



One Museum Place has topped out!



Facade work is underway as well:





The glassy Flatiron-style building is about to go vertical across the street:



7-Eleven's Corner Store & condo building is pretty well finished out now:



The new Post Office is moving right along as well:

[FortWorthology]

Creating a plaza for the Cultural District.

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.  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.  The 7th & Arch Adams intersection (which is being radically reconfigured - the curved portion of Arch Adams that runs alongside the existing 7-Eleven is going away, to be replaced by a mixed-use building.  Instead, the small offshoot of Arch Adams further west, in front of the new 7-Eleven Corner Store/condo building and Village Homes townhomes - will become the new Arch Adams) will become the plaza.  It'll be a wider open space surrounded by mixed-use structures and retail, giving a constant human presence (making people feel safer due to having "eyes on the street"), and still creating a comforting sense of enclosure being surrounded by 4-8 story buildings.  The traffic calming design and plaza design are actually the same - the intersection is being raised up, and paved with rougher brick & stone.  This creates an unending pedestrian design - the intersection is at curb height, so the transition from sidewalk to plaza to sidewalk is unbroken - and by creating a rougher surface and a noticeable height difference, it helps to slow traffic on 7th as well.



Using techniques such as these, the streets can become truly multipurpose - even on normal days, cars will travel more slowly through the area and make pedestrians feel more comfortable.  The buildings that set back a bit add to the plaza's space.  For special events, the plaza could easily be blocked off completely to make a total pedestrian space.

It's an interesting bit of urban design, and it's good to see developers thinking outside the box a bit to create unique and inviting spaces for the Cultural District.

[FortWorthology]

One Museum Place getting its facade and window frames.  For the uninitiated, this building will be ground floor retail, office space above, and topped by two floors of condos:



The Museum Place "Flatiron" rises across the street.  This building will be ground-floor retail with office space above - and yes, the billboard should be coming down soon:





This lot, stretching along Arch Adams from Camp Bowie to 7th, will be home to the new Aloft Hotel:



The realignment of Arch Adams north of 7th is now underway.  The current Arch Adams north of 7th (which curves around to meet up with Arch Adams south of 7th) will be removed, and the old street right-of-way will actually be within a new mixed-use building.  The small side street in front of the new 7-Eleven Corner Store/condos and the Village Homes townhomes will be the new Arch Adams north of 7th.





The 7-Eleven Corner Store/condo building is getting its finishing touches.  I figure the new store will be moving in pretty soon.

[FortWorthology]

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. Below, a close-up of some of the facade work, showing the brick and granite that will make up the majority of this side of the building:



Meanwhile, across the street:



The new “Flatiron” style building is about to head upwards towards its final height. The small triangular building will be ground floor retail and office space.



On the next block, crews are grading and prepping the site of what will be the development’s Aloft Hotel, which should be similar in height to One Museum Place and will likely feature Aloft’s distinctive roof treatment. The Aloft will, like every building in the development, feature ground-floor retail.



Adjacent to the Aloft site, the pace is picking up on the realignment of Arch Adams Street. Arch Adams will now no longer connect straight through the site, as it does now; rather, it will shift over and run in front of the 7-Eleven Corner Store/condo building shown in the photo and the Village Homes townhomes already in place. The former alignment of Arch Adams will be closed and torn out, and a mixed-use building will run from the new Arch Adams alignment all the way over the old alignment and over the site of the current 7-Eleven store. This small map view shows the new alignment of the street and the presence of the mixed-use building in the old right-of-way, along with the large public plaza that will be created where the alignment shifts:



Last, but not least:



Facade work is at last underway on the new Post Office between University and Bailey. The new Post Office, designed by the Pritzker Prize-winning Philadelphia firm of Venturi, Scott Brown, and Associates, will feature a large mural on ceramic tiles of a thunderstorm rolling across the prairie on the side facing the big intersection. This side will also be the site of another public plaza, and the tornado-bent steel beams that stood on this site since the 2000 tornado will be reinstalled in the plaza as a piece of sculpture. The bent poles have been seen on the construction site again recently as time nears for them to be put back in place.

[krazeeboi]

Nice to see the progress! Keep the pics comin'.

[FortWorthology]

The "Flatiron" is now rising.  Here's the framing going up:

[FortWorthology]

Here's another that's come a long way:

[eastsider]

This is a very impressive development. The Flatiron Building has a very interesting look to it and the Post Office facade is a great idea in the way it plays off the tornado damaged supports.