In January, Dallas-based Bluelofts Inc. acquired the historic Oil & Gas building on West 7th Street in downtown Fort Worth, in partnership with Wolfe Investments, with a goal of converting it to 180 luxury apartments with ground-floor retail. Now Bluelofts has acquired the even larger landmark building adjacent to it—the 19-story Star-Telegram Building.
Built in 1929, the Star-Telegram Building is now slated for a mixed-use future of luxury apartments, office space, and retail.
“We wanted to own both of them,” Bluelofts co-funder Ike Bams told the Dallas Morning News. “It has the same lobby and there is a lot of connected infrastructure.”
Plano’s Wolfe Investments partnered on both deals
L to R: Ike Bams and John Williams, co-founders of Bluelofts Inc., and Kenneth Wolfe of Wolfe Investments [Photos: Bluelofts/Wolfe Investments]
As with the Oil & Gas building, Bluelofts’ acquisition was made with Plano-based Wolfe Investments as a partner. Dallas-based Younger Partners handled the marketing for both sales.
Wolfe Investments has been busy lately. It recently acquired the colorful 1950s-era 211 North Ervay building in downtown Dallas, which is also slated for residential conversion—a growing trend in both Dallas’ and Fort Worth’s downtown districts.
Two buildings will become one ‘giant mixed-use community’
With both the Star-Telegram and Oil & Gas buildings being redeveloped by Bluelofts, they’re basically being considered as one big project.
“Holistically, it will be just this giant mixed-use community,” Bluelofts co-founder John Williams told the Dallas Business Journal, adding that “Fort Worth is known for excellent hotels,. It has a lot of hospitality and nice, vintage, upscale hotels, but there’s not enough apartments within downtown Fort Worth.”
A total of 268 residential units will be offered between the two buildings, according to the DMN.
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Dallas has increasingly been putting apartments into historic downtown buildings. In the past week, Fort Worth made its own one-two punch in the same direction. First, Dallas-based Bluelofts Inc. acquired the historic Oil & Gas building on West 7th Street in downtown Fort Worth (above), for conversion into 180 apartments with ground-floor retail. Now Chicago's 3L Real Estate has acquired the 16-story former Oncor Building on the very same street for conversion into—you guessed it—apartments.
