Documenting Growth, Development, and Real Estate in Fort Worth.
Here is a great article talking about the history and importance of the Fountain Place building in Dallas. The building was recently the target of an FBI sting operation which ended in the arrest of a would be bomber. The bomber, a 20 year old Jordanian man, was recruited by FBI agents via a militant Islamist website and provided with false explosives for carrying out his mission.
It is a beautiful building.
WFAA has written an interesting article discussing optimism within the downtown condo/loft market. Certainly there is much to be optimistic about, but the prize may still lay several years down the road. Still there is some interesting information from Andy Taft who notes that downtown residences are on the market for only about two thirds of the time that a typical single family residence is. Which, in case you were wondering, is about 150 days for single family homes and 100 downtown. 150 and fifty days? That’s five months. I probably would have guessed somewhere in the 90 to 120 day range, but 150 sure is long.
Of course we all know that Le Bijou went down in flames, but the WFAA seems fairly certain that the T&P lofts were a success. T&P is supposed to be 95% sold, but this occupancy certainly comes after some tough times for the developer. T&P recently went through a fire sale to off-load a good portion of their units, which is great, unless you were one of those unlucky folks who paid the full $300/sq. ft. Also, I wonder about the Tower; it certainly created OK returns for initial investors but a lot of those units are either rentals or perpetually for sale. I won’t even go into Villa de Leon because I am just not sure that Fort Worth really needed a Hotel ZaZa-esque development.
Short version is that Fort Worth will one day have a thriving downtown residential environment, but it may have to be postponed for some time.
Someone asked me the other day about “those nice condos on the East side of Downtown”. I instinctively knew which ones they were talking about (Le Bijou) and knew that they were pretty pricey. Never knowing much about them I thought their bottom unit price to be about $700k, but what I didn’t know was that they were on the verge of foreclosure.
There are only 14 units in this development, and it has been tough for the developer to make sales of them. While they are some of the most spacious residences available in downtown, they are also among the most expensive. I am not surprised that they are foreclosed on. I for one would hate to respond with “Le Bijou” everytime someone asked where I lived. It just seems like a pretty phony french accent to throw on in Fort Worth.
I found this humorous, so I just had to note that a 71 year old man was caught by a female deputy mowing; in the nude. The only clothing that the Lake Worth man felt would be necessary was a pair of tennis shoes.
Apparently he ran back into his house when he saw her. Later he emerged (with shorts) saying that he believed his yard was fully private. He was given a citation.
Recent Comments