Historic downtown Fort Worth building sells to Dallas Stars owner Tom Gaglardi
August 7,2018
Star-Telegram news article by Anna M. Tinsley
An iconic downtown building has a new owner — from Dallas.
The historic 20-story W.T. Waggoner Building has been bought by the Northland Properties Corp., a company led by Dallas Stars hockey team owner Tom Gaglardi.
“The historical relevance of the W.T. Waggoner Building makes this the perfect hotel asset for us,” Gaglardi, president and CEO of Northland Properties, said in a statement. “With the opening of our first hotel in Plano in the next few weeks, we are excited to continue to expand throughout Texas, and we think Fort Worth is a fantastic market for us to grow into.”
The 1920 building at 810 Houston St., once one of the tallest buildings in Texas, was designed to resemble New York’s Equitable Building, according to fortwortharchitecture.com.
The sale price was not immediately available Tuesday.
The structure, on the National Register of Historic Places since 1979, has 119,846 square feet of existing office space. It was once owned by XTO Energy.
Part of the building, mainly the elevator lobby and ground floor bank, was restored 15 years ago to the way much of it looked when the Continental National Bank was the first occupant of the building. The sale also includes the adjacent surface parking lot.
Northland Properties, based in Canada, develops and runs sports facilities, hotels and restaurants in the United States and Canada. David Walters and Marty Neilon represented Northland in this transaction.
The real estate brokerage firm of Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) marketed the building and completed the sale.
“In addition to its iconic status as one of downtown Fort Worth’s most recognizable and historic buildings, the WT Waggoner Building’s centralized location and the potential for future development on the remainder of the block make this a terrific investment for the new owners,” Ryan Matthews, executive vice president at JLL, said in a statement.
“Throughout the transition process, XTO has been careful and mindful in identifying a partner who will ensure the integrity of these assets for the betterment of our city,” he said. ”We are proud of the result for all of those involved.”
This is the fifth of seven buildings once occupied by XTO, before the company last year moved more than 1,500 workers to Houston, to sell. In January, Sundance Square purchased the Petroleum Building from XTO.
Anna Tinsley: 817-390-7610, @annatinsley