Historic downtown Fort Worth building to become new library branch

August 13,2024

See full Fort Worth Report article by Cecilia Lenzen here.

A historic building in downtown Fort Worth is poised to embark on a new chapter. Located at 512 W. 4th St., the building is set to become Fort Worth’s new downtown library branch after the city’s former Central Library closed in 2023. 

Fort Worth City Council voted Aug. 13 to purchase the building for about $6.5 million, with the intent to renovate it for library use in the future. The approximately 31,500-square-foot building currently houses the Center for Transforming Lives, a nonprofit agency focused on reducing poverty among women and children in Tarrant County.

“We are finally going to have a downtown library again,” council member Elizabeth Beck, who represents the area, said. “It is long overdue — I know it took a little bit longer than everybody liked, myself included.” 

The sale comes just over a year after Fort Worth sold its former Central Library, located at 500 W. 3rd St., to national real estate investment and development firm Dart Interests for $18 million. The firm plans to demolish the building and replace it with two 20-story buildings with a mix of residential, retail and office space.

In November 2023, the city scrapped plans to reopen the downtown library by leasing the main floor and basement of a building at 100 Main St. The city has since opened the Downtown Express Library, a room on the first floor of City Hall where residents can check out books and use free Wi-Fi.

Library spokesperson Theresa Davis previously told the Report renovations on the new library site could start in early 2025, but no exact timeline has been announced. Renovations are expected to cost an estimated $6.5 million. 

After purchasing the building, the city will lease it back to the Center for Transforming Lives for one dollar until Jan. 31, 2025, according to City Council meeting documents. At that point, the center will have the option to lease the building for an additional four months until May 31, 2025, for $55,000 per month. 

The Center for Transforming Lives is building its new headquarters on a 14-acre tract of land at 3001 S. Riverside Drive. Trish Rodriguez, the center’s communications director, previously told the Report the organization hopes to transition to its new space in late 2024 or early 2025. 

The center’s current building was built in the late 1920s and first served as the headquarters for the Fort Worth Elks Lodge fraternity, according to Historic Fort Worth Inc. archives. The Center for Transforming Lives, then known as the Young Women’s Christian Association of Fort Worth and Tarrant County, purchased the building in 1955 and has been headquartered there since. 

“(The city) truly appreciates the historic nature of the building and the role it plays downtown,” Carol Klocek, CEO of the Center for Transforming Lives, said in a July 31 statement to the Report. “We couldn’t ask for a better buyer.”

Funds for both the purchase and renovation of the building are coming from the former Central Library’s sale. 

In May, City Manager David Cooke said the city has $15.9 million left from the library sale and plans to use $3.4 million for a far northwest library branch. At the time, Beck said she worried that using funds originally dedicated to a new downtown library to pay for other projects would make it harder to find a location when the time came. 

Now, she’s excited to see the new branch come to life. 

“It happened the way it should because the location that we landed on could not be more perfect,” Beck said. 

Cecilia Lenzen is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at cecilia.lenzen@fortworthreport.org or @bycecilialenzen. 

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