Since the building is now completed, I thought I would ask your opinions on the design and functionality of the Fort Worth Convention Center. Please analyze the entire facility. How do you think the new sections relate with the old? Should the arena be demolished for additional exhibit space? How do you like the new Houston Street facade?
Opinions on the FW Convention Center Expansion
Started by
John T Roberts
, Apr 04 2004 06:52 PM
11 replies to this topic
#2
ghughes
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Posted 04 April 2004 - 06:52 PM
I think the Houston Street side looks great. All the variety of look suggests an active streetscape.
Too bad it's fake.
Unless that block can be opened up in the future to accomodate shops and other street-level activity it is doomed to be as dead as if it were a faceless expanse of concrete. It is a prime example of form triumphing over substance. Of course, the expanse of surface parking across the street is the prime contributor to the bleak emptiness.
The Convention Center's design will help prevent Houston Street from being the connector of choice to the Lancaster redevelopment. I hope some of the other streets between Sundance and Lancaster will fare better.
Too bad it's fake.
Unless that block can be opened up in the future to accomodate shops and other street-level activity it is doomed to be as dead as if it were a faceless expanse of concrete. It is a prime example of form triumphing over substance. Of course, the expanse of surface parking across the street is the prime contributor to the bleak emptiness.
The Convention Center's design will help prevent Houston Street from being the connector of choice to the Lancaster redevelopment. I hope some of the other streets between Sundance and Lancaster will fare better.
#3
John T Roberts
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Posted 04 April 2004 - 06:52 PM
Greg, I thought the plan was to open up the Houston Street facade for retail shops and services to be located on the ground floor of the center. The shops could feed both off the street and from the center itself.
#4
ghughes
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Posted 04 April 2004 - 06:53 PM
Well I certainly hope that is the actual plan. I don't know if the interior footprint is adequate without wiping out a hallway, but if the building was designed with that in mind my hat is off to everyone involved.
#5
djeseru
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Posted 04 April 2004 - 06:53 PM
Give me a couple of weeks and I will give you my answer!
#6
John T Roberts
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Posted 04 April 2004 - 06:59 PM
Please pardon the pun, but all of the ground floor spaces on the west side of the Convention Center have been converted into meeting rooms. I'm wondering if the retail idea was killed for the need of more meeting space?
#7
UTAmav91
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Posted 04 April 2004 - 07:00 PM
Did the idea of building a new arena at the Will Rogers complex and converting the existing convention center arena into meeting rooms or convention space ever get serious consideration? I know that idea has been around seemingly forever.
#8
FWConstructor
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Posted 04 April 2004 - 07:00 PM
I think there is a luncheon with the FWCC tomorrow at Will Rogers to discuss this very topic. I know that they are still planning on trying to raise bond money to build an arena.
#9
hipolyte
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Posted 06 April 2004 - 07:06 AM
The Houston street facade seems way to busy to me, with the intricate brick patterns, for the scale. Looking at it makes my head hurt. I don't like it.
#10
John T Roberts
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Posted 06 April 2004 - 11:02 AM
I have always thought that it was too busy. However, it is a big improvement over the 1960's facade that it had. In some ways, I do like it.
#11
cjyoung
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Posted 07 April 2004 - 02:36 PM
Overall, I don't like it because it's still too small to compete with Gaylord or three facilities in Dallas and the missing retail component, but it is a great improvement over what was there before.
I hope we can build a new arena...good enough to host NCAA hoops regionals and to make Fort Worth a required stop when big-name music acts come through north Texas.
Peace
I hope we can build a new arena...good enough to host NCAA hoops regionals and to make Fort Worth a required stop when big-name music acts come through north Texas.
Peace
#12
Fire-Eater
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Posted 18 July 2004 - 11:32 AM
SAVE THE ARENA!!! 
WWSPFD?*
History is but the record of the public and official acts of human beings. It is our object, therefore, to humanize our history and deal with people past and present; people who ate and possibly drank; people who were born, flourished and died; not grave tragedians, posing perpetually for their photographs. ~Bill Nye, History of the United States
For me there is no greater subject than history. How a man can study it and not be forced to become a philosopher, I cannot tell. ~George E. Wilson
*What Would Susan Pringle Frost Do?
History is but the record of the public and official acts of human beings. It is our object, therefore, to humanize our history and deal with people past and present; people who ate and possibly drank; people who were born, flourished and died; not grave tragedians, posing perpetually for their photographs. ~Bill Nye, History of the United States
For me there is no greater subject than history. How a man can study it and not be forced to become a philosopher, I cannot tell. ~George E. Wilson
*What Would Susan Pringle Frost Do?
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