The future of the Fort Worth Community Arts Center and the property where it sits on 1300 Gendy St. are in the hands of the creatives of architectural firms and developers after the City Council this week formally adopted the findings of a committee formed to examine the property’s future.
The city will soon begin taking proposals from developers after the task force chaired by former City Councilman Leonard Firestone recommended earlier this month that the best path forward is redeveloping 1300 Gendy St. rather than renovating and restoring structures in disrepair that could cost as much as $30 million.
The goal, task force members concluded, was to reimagine the property as a “world-class cultural hub.”
That did little to assuage the angst of stakeholders and the creatives of the arts community ill at ease over the prospects of losing this centerpiece of Fort Worth cultural history that has stood here since 1954.
They appeared in droves to address the City Council on Tuesday, each either urging members to give the building another chance or help ensure that the arts collective remain the centerpiece of redevelopment.
“As your mayor, I will not approve any RFP [Request for Proposal] that doesn’t maintain a priority and requirement that includes that theater is maintained and you have a community arts space,” said Mayor Mattie Parker, a former dancer who called art “a part of my whole being in life.
“It is imperative for me.”
The city has an ambitious timetable, finalizing a long-term ground lease with a developer by 2024 or 2025.
It is the preference that the developer incorporate the history and architecture of the existing structures into the redevelopment proposal. The recommendation the task force advanced also wants the developer to include an incubator for emerging artists and arts organizations and a theater, “subject to economic feasibility,” though Parker appears to be insisting on it.
It is hoped that the selected developer include existing tenants.
The building is currently leased by Arts Fort Worth for use as the Fort Worth Community Arts Center and W.E. Scott Theater.
The complex includes three architecturally significant buildings constructed over the years. The Main Art Gallery, designed by Herbert Bayer, opened in 1954; the Scott Theater and Solarium, designed by Joseph R. Pelich, opened in 1966; and the Art Museum and Porte Cochere, designed by O’Neil Ford Associates, opened in 1976.
Pelich’s drafting tools have been transformative to the city.
Austrian born, Pelich’s ties to Fort Worth extend to Vernon Castle. Pelich, whose family immigrated to Cleveland when he was a young boy, joined the U.S. Army Corps and was assigned to Fort Worth for training under Castle, the commanding officer. After Castle’s death in a training exercise, Pelich became chief flying instructor at Fort Worth’s three army airfields.
He stayed here after his discharge.
Pelich designed the original, outdoor Casa Manana for the Texas Frontier Centennial in 1936 and many other edifices, including Polytechnic High School in 1938, Robert Carr Chapel and TCU’s Daniel-Meyer Coliseum, which has been renovated and renamed Schollmaier Arena. He also designed St. Joseph’s Hospital.
Pelich teamed with Preston Geren Sr. on the design of the Greater Southwest International Airport.
On the Scott Theater, Pelich paired with Donald Oenslager.
Only few years earlier, Oenslager, a renowned New York theater consultant and Yale lecturer, visited the art center, saying, “This is a real civic center — with crafts and classes and musical evenings. Some day I wish it could take in a theater, too.”
What was added in 1966 was a small intimate theater with 13 rows of seating, European style with no cross aisle. No seat is farther than 65 feet from the stage.
At the three-day gala opening of the theater addition, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Gordan MacRae were among the celebrities who turned out.
Over the years, the property has been known as the Fort Worth Art Center, the Fort Worth Art Museum, and the Modern Art Museum, which moved into its stately building on Darnell Street in 2002.
The city, on advice from a previous task force, created the Fort Worth Community Arts Center and leased the property to Arts Fort Worth, a nonprofit responsible for maintaining the buildings.
“Arts Fort Worth, however, has lacked sufficient resources with which to fulfill this responsibility,” city staff reported to the Council earlier this year, “and various components of the building have consequently fallen into disrepair.”
