Bob on Business: Downtown Fort Worth building starts off the new year by changing hands
January 12,2025
See full Fort Worth Report article by Bob Francis here.
The former W.T. Grant department store building at 611 Houston St. in downtown Fort Worth has been acquired by a new local real estate group, MainStreet Partners.
“This historic building, currently home to The Library Bar and Pete’s Dueling Piano Bar, has lots of untapped potential, and we’re excited to bring our vision for it to life,” said Mitchell Parker, co-founder and partner at MainStreet Partners.
MainStreet Partners acquired the building from Austin-based Sabot Development and Loose Boot Holdings. Pinnacle Bank was the financial lender for the project.
W.T. Grant was a chain of mass-merchandise stores founded by William Thomas Grant that operated from 1906 until 1976.
“It still has the Grants on the side of the building up at the top … which is cool, in my opinion,” Parker said. “If you go in there now you would have no idea it was formerly a department store, because it doesn’t look like it anymore, but it’s got a cool history.”
The 23,049-square-foot building, completed in 1939, is valued by the Tarrant Appraisal District at $2.3 million, although those valuations often are unrelated to the sales price.
Parker said he had looked at the building over a year ago and MainStreet Partners kept coming back to it because of the great location and potential.
“We knew it would be a little bit of a challenge, because there’s a lot of deferred maintenance, but we really like downtown Fort Worth and Fort Worth overall,” he said. “We see a lot of potential with this specific property. Eventually, we were able to make it work for the sellers and for us.”
Parker said that, along with The Library Bar and Pete’s Dueling Piano Bar, the building also has an 8,600-square-foot basement that could be used for either retail or storage.
“We’ve had people approach us with some interesting concepts for the space, but we’re going to have to get into it and see what works,” he said. “There’s a lot of interesting potential there.”
“We think it could be a really cool retail concept that’s a draw for local Fort Worth residents, visitors to Fort Worth, things like that, and be a good complement to the other tenants that are already there, which do a good job of pulling in local service industry-types and also visitors and people coming in for conferences, things like that,” he said. “Some of the retail groups that have reached out to us could be a good complement to that and could also attract local downtown Fort Worth residents or even other residents of Fort Worth and the area.”
MainStreet was founded in 2024 and specializes in value-add commercial real estate, with a focus on strip malls and retail, Parker said.
“We’re planning to be really active in 2025,” he said. “We’re a really young company but we’ve got the right experience, the right capital partners to be aggressive in 2025.”
Parker said they don’t plan to exclusively work in North Texas, but expect to spend the majority of their time here.
“We love North Texas,” he said. “We’d love to do more deals here.”
Macy’s closing two area locations
Macy’s Inc. has confirmed the closure of 66 Macy’s store locations, including two in Tarrant County. These closures are a part of the New York-based retailer’s Bold New Chapter strategy, which was announced in February 2024 and aims to return the company to profitability.
The store closings in Tarrant County are both Market by Macy’s locations, one at Fort Worth’s WestBend and the other at Southlake Town Square. Market by Macy’s was a new concept with a smaller, more fashion-oriented retail location. Both locations opened in 2021. Other stores in the area closing are at the Shops at Willow Bend in Plano and in the Highlands of Flower Mound.
Kimbell Royalty makes acquisition
Fort Worth-based Kimbell Royalty Partners LP, an owner of oil and gas mineral and royalty interests in approximately 17 million acres in 28 states, has agreed to acquire mineral and royalty interests held by a private seller in a cash and unit transaction valued at approximately $231 million. Under the agreement, Kimbell has the option to pay sellers either entirely in cash or through a combination of $207 million in cash and approximately 1.4 million common units of Kimbell Royalty Partners stock.
For the full year 2025, Kimbell estimates that the acquired assets will produce approximately 1,842 barrels of oil equivalent per day. The acquired acreage is located under the Mabee Ranch in the Midland Basin, with oil and gas minerals and royalty interests concentrated in Martin and Andrews counties. The acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of 2025.
Play ball and serve concessions!
The Texas Rangers and concessionaire Delaware North are partnering to host a job fair for 2025 seasonal positions at Globe Life Field and Choctaw Stadium on Feb. 1.
The hiring event will be held at Globe Life Field from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and is open to anyone older than 16.
Free parking for the job fair will be available in Lots T and W on the east side of Globe Life Field and can be accessed from Stadium Drive. Applicants may enter the ballpark through the SeatGeek Southeast entry. The event will be held in the Southeast entry lobby area.
For more information or to apply for seasonal positions online, visit rangers.com/jobs.
Crestline closes $1 billion CLO
Crestline Investors Inc., a global alternative investment manager based in Fort Worth, announced it has closed Crestline Direct Lending CLO I LLC, a $1 billion collateralized loan obligation. The CLO represents one of the largest new issue middle-market CLOs of 2024, according to the firm.
GreensLedge Capital Markets served as arranger and lead placement agent, NatWest Markets Securities Inc. served as co-placement agent and KeyBanc Capital Markets served as co-structuring agent. The CLO will be managed by Crestline and all of the equity interests will be retained by its Crestline Specialty Lending III fund.
Crestline Investors is an alternative investment management firm founded in 1997 with affiliate offices in London, New York, Toronto and Tokyo. The firm has approximately $20 billion in assets under management as of June 30, 2024.
New distribution center set
Endries International Inc., a leader in fastener, components and fulfillment solutions for many of the best-known manufacturers, will open a new distribution center in Fort Worth. This expansion will double current capacity to 65,000 square feet.
Strategically located near intermodal yards, the new warehouse will provide faster and more cost-effective delivery to our customers. Additionally, the establishment of a foreign trade zone within the facility will enable Endries to more easily navigate the increasingly complex environment of import tariffs and duties. The strategic proximity of this location to West Coast ports and Latin America will provide significant advantages for Endries’ southern customers and serve as an efficient staging hub to support our warehouse operations in Mexico, the company said.
The new distribution center is expected to open by the end of February.
Do you have something for the Bob on Business column? Email Bob Francis at bob.francis@fortworthreport.org.
Bob Francis is business editor for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at bob.francis@fortworthreport.org. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Location Mentioned: Pete's Dueling Piano Bar