FORT WORTH, Texas — This article was originally published by our content partners at the Dallas Business Journal. You can read the original article here.
The City of Fort Worth is selling properties that span one expanded city block in downtown Fort Worth in an area that is becoming a hotspot for development.
The city is selling three buildings and parking lots via JLL. The properties include the Lone Star Gas Building at 908 Monroe St., the building next door at 900 Monroe St., a 338-space parking garage at 319 W. 10th St. and nearby parking lots. Hertz leases 914 square feet of the parking garage, and the company's lease expires in November 2026, according to JLL.
In total, the properties amount to 222,239 square feet over 1.32 acres, according to a JLL offering memorandum. JLL describes the properties as "the largest currently available site in the city's Central Business District."
The move to sell the properties comes as the city moves many of its departments to its new city hall building downtown, a 20-story building at 100 Energy Way that used to be Pier 1 Imports' headquarters. Ricky Salazar, assistant property management director of the city's real estate division, said the city has outgrown the buildings.
"If it's well planned, I think this provides a really good opportunity to rejuvenate part of downtown," he said.
The highest cash offers for the properties will be presented to Fort Worth's city council. The city can either accept or reject the highest cash offer, Salazar said.
The most iconic of the buildings is the former Lone Star Gas Co. headquarters at 908 Monroe St., which has a historic designation. The now seven-story building was designed in 1929 by architect Wyatt C. Hedrick, according to Historic Fort Worth. The building is known for its rotating neon blue flame sign on the roof, which was restored last year. The city's water, environmental services, neighborhood services and HR departments were located in the building, Salazar said.
Todd Burnette, executive managing director of JLL's Fort Worth office, said he thinks there's a high probability that the Lone Star Building could be bought to be converted into residential or a hotel. The historical designation on the building protects the building from demolition, he said. He notes that the building has windows on three sides, which would make it appealing for a conversion.
The building is also in a popular area downtown for development, he said, with the new Texas A&M campus and the $700 million convention center renovation and expansion. He said JLL started touring potential buyers on Nov. 7.
"There's just so much demand downtown, and this location, with everything that's happening at the convention center, would be a great location for a hotel," he said.
According to JLL, downtown Fort Worth has about 5.3 million square feet of Class A space between 16 properties, with vacancy sitting at 13.6% and average asking rent of $34.69 a square foot. Class B space makes up 3.5 million square feet and has a vacancy rate of 10.3% and average asking rent of $23.68 a square foot. Many Class B properties in downtown are being converted, Burnette noted.
The 42,029-square-foot building next door to the Lone Star building at 900 Monroe St. does have a demolition delay, Burnette said, which pauses its removal for up to 180 days. He said the properties will be sold as one package.
This isn't the first time the city has sold one of its own properties. The city listed its downtown library for sale in 2022 via JLL, and it was bought last year by Dart Interests for $18 million. Dart plans to build a more than $200 million mixed-use development, though the plans are still preliminary.
Burnette said he thinks the properties will sell faster than the city's central library did, noting that the city had specific requests for the central library about the buyer developing a mixed-use property and investing at least $200 million. Those restrictions are not on the newly-listed properties.
"[The city is] just looking at it as the market will dictate what they're going to get and so I think that creates more potential buyers," Burnette said. "The price range where this falls in brings in more players."
Fort Worth also owns parcels of land along the Lancaster Avenue corridor, Salazar said. The city also owns a property off of West 13th Street not being offered because it's being held for "possible economic development purposes."
Robert Sturns, director of Fort Worth's economic development department, also notes a lot of activity happening downtown and also sees strong economic development potential.
"Putting these city-owned facilities on the market creates an opportunity to better activate some parts of the area that haven't seen as much investment – in particular, the southern part of Downtown near Lancaster Avenue," Sturns said in a statement. "There's significant potential for that area to start generating more foot traffic and becoming a dynamic live/work/play neighborhood, which could take several different forms depending on the developer."
