Former Department Store in TX Converted into Apartments

Sanger Brothers Building - J.C. Penney, Fort Worth Texas

Date added: July 26, 2024

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The Sanger Brothers Building of Fort Worth (1928-29) reflects a substantial period of economic and physical growth and change in Fort Worth created by oil and railroad investment in the city. Sanger Brothers was one of the preeminent retailers in Texas and the southwest. Their building was part of a general promotion for growth and development implemented by the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce in response to a burgeoning local economy. During this period, major retailers including the Sanger Brothers constructed approximately 21 buildings in and near downtown, dramatically changing the face of the city. In 1928 alone, over $4 million of new construction provided one million square feet of floor space in Fort Worth. This handsome low-rise 2-part commercial block with Spanish Revival detailing was designed by Wyatt C. Hedrick, one of the top architects in Fort Worth and the southwest, and head of the third largest firm in the country, at the time. The design, with false balconies and ornate cornice, reflected the national and international vogue of the day for department stores, influenced by Harrod's in London, Marshall Field's in Chicago, and Macy's and Gimbel's in New York.

The Sanger Brothers stores started in Texas in 1857. Sanger, Texas located north of Denton, is named after the Sanger family. By the 1890s, the Sanger Brothers Dry Goods Co. spread throughout the region and was widely respected for its innovative approaches to merchandising, retailing, public service and employee relations. The store expanded to Fort Worth in 1918 due to the booming economy brought about after World War I. Joe Sanger, son of Lehman Sanger became general manager. The company leased store space until 1923 when an agreement was reached to build a new store. This was the building at 515 Houston St., one-half block south of the subject building, that was designed by Wiley G. Clarkson and constructed in 1924-1925. In 1926, Chester L. Jones became the President and General Manager of Sanger Brothers Incorporated.

In the late 1920s the Sanger brothers began plans for their second downtown building, citing the need for additional space. This new building, with others, was constructed in response to new found wealth and an active economy based on oil and rail trade networks.

The resultant late 1920s and early 1930s building boom helped transform downtown Fort Worth from a modest north central Texas "cowtown" to an impressive major commercial center. The Sanger Brothers Building, like most of the major Fort Worth commercial buildings constructed in 1928/1929, promoted their modern design and new amenities such as air conditioning. The advertising for Sanger's referred to the innovative air conditioning and heating system as "manufactured weather."

An integral component of the retail enclave at the intersection of Fourth and Houston Streets, the Sanger Brothers Building was part of an incredible building boom that took place in Fort Worth between 1928 and 1932. The Sanger Brothers Building, adjacent to the J. C. Penney's Building on the north, and constructed just months later, signaled a period of planned, major commercial and public growth in Fort Worth. During the early 20s, the city made the transformation from an agriculturally based economy to one driven by regional oil and rail markets; and implemented a new City Charter providing for a manager/council form of city government. With the new charter and newfound wealth, the city focused attention on numerous, long-neglected infrastructure improvements. In response, the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce and the Manufacturer and Wholesalers Association consolidated and developed a five-year program of work. This program lasted from 1928 to 1932 under the "One Hundred Million Dollar Construction and Improvement Program." Using the Consumer Price Index, this amount in 1991 would be a staggering $796,000,000. The program had ten goals including: securing a Union railroad depot, completion of the Tarrant County road building program, promotion and trade extension through every possible aid to local industries and wholesale and retail establishments, advertising Fort Worth nationally, and developing Fort Worth Market by recruiting additional wholesale houses. Implicit in this plan was the idea that Chamber members would also contribute to transforming downtown by upgrading their businesses and building new facilities. With this building boom, the skyline of Fort Worth changed dramatically into a major commercial center.

When the Sanger Brothers Building originally opened in June of 1929, press reports indicated that construction cost $1 million and used 500 tons of ashlar, 29 tons of granite and 380 tons of steel. During construction the collapse of a wall between the Sanger Brothers Building and the adjacent J.C. Penney Building caused construction delays. Later, two fires damaged the J.C. Penney Building "curing" or hardening the concrete on the Sanger Brothers Building, making it very difficult to penetrate for drilling and changes. Like the Woolworth Building across the street, this edifice was constructed to accommodate additional floors (three more stories).

The Sanger Brothers Building was constructed during the same period as the Texas and Pacific Terminal Complex and Freight Buildings, the Blackstone Hotel, Trinity Life Building, Sinclair Building, Masonic Temple, Central Fire Station, and many other buildings. This spate of construction was complemented by the completion of major street widening, repaving and the construction of overpasses in the city. The majority of the buildings in this period were designed by either Wyatt C. Hedrick (Sanger Brothers, Central Fire Station, Lone Star Gas, etc.) or Wiley G. Clarkson (Woolworth, Sinclair, YMCA, etc.). Young architectural designers came to Fort Worth seeking employment with either firm. Hedrick's firm branched out to Dallas, Houston, and El Paso, and was at one time, the third largest architectural firm in the United States. These two firms, contributed to a skyline that exhibited a diversity of styles with a strong Art Deco and classical influence and represented the last major period of economic expansion in Fort Worth.

Wyatt C. Hedrick came to Texas in 1913 as a construction engineer for the Stone and Webster Engineering Corporation of Boston to work in their Dallas office. In 1914, he moved to Fort Worth to begin his own construction firm. In 1921 he became a partner in the well-known firm of Sanguinet and Staats. He established his own architectural firm in 1925 with offices in Fort Worth, Dallas, and Houston. Hedrick's firm became one of the two most prolific Fort Worth architectural firms for commercial buildings in the late 1920s, the other being headed by his colleague Wiley Clarkson.

Hedrick was known for his Moderne Style buildings in Fort Worth which include the Worth Theater (1927), Lone Star Gas Company Building (1929), Hollywood Theater (1930), Central Fire Station and Fire Signal Station (1930), Texas and Pacific Terminal and Warehouse, Will Rogers Memorial Center (1936), City Hall (1938) and Mrs. Baird's Bread Plant (1938). He completed many other commissions in predominantly classical revival-influenced styles, including the Neil P. Anderson Building, the Star Telegram Building, Miller Electric Building, St. Joseph's Hospital, the Medical Arts Building, and the Fort Worth Club Building. He also worked with Clarkson on two public housing projects in Fort Worth (1938-1939). He designed four schools under the Public School Building Program in the mid-1930s. Hedrick designed several educational facilities in Texas including Texas Tech University, Texas Christian University, Texas Wesleyan, and North Texas State University. In Dallas, he designed the Bradford Building, Love Aviation Field and the Trinity Cotton Oil Company.

Perfected in the late 19^th century, the 2-part commercial block became the most prevalent, non-residential, form in use throughout the Midwest, Southwest, South, and Western states. Employed and well into the 1930s, reinforced concrete construction with thick interior columns was most suited for urban areas where additional floors were needed to meet commercial demands land was becoming scarce. This however, was primarily a functional response to needs for commercial space and initially shunned much ornamentation. To be competitive and attract customers, however, retailers felt the need to ornament their basic multi-story warehouse-type buildings. Ornamenting them approximated the accepted exterior detailing of previous architectural styles. To answer this need, many architects embraced revival style detailing as exhibited on the Sanger Brothers Building.

In 1931, the Sanger Brothers closed this store due to the depression and financial problems within the company. Building ownership reverted to the bank and sat vacant until 1943. In 1943, the building was converted to a USO Center (United Service Organization) for use by World War II soldiers. The Federal Works Administration granted $82,200, and the Local War Chest raised $31,500 to renovate the building. Wiley Clarkson (architect of the Woolworth Building and numerous others in downtown) with the firm of Pelich, Geren and Rady transformed the Sanger Brothers Building into the "largest and finest" USO center in the nation. The basement was transformed into a canteen, the 1^st floor into a stage and lounge, the 2^nd became a game room and library, the 3^rd for accommodations for wives and girlfriends, and the 4^th had bunks for the men. In January of 1946 the building was sold to J.C. Penney's for $432,000. The renovation cost of $1 million, which in 1991 dollars would be $7.96 million. Purchase of the Sanger Brothers Building was a remarkable decision by Penney's, since the new space more than tripled the amount of space of their former quarters. Approximately 400 people were employed in the new store as compared to 53 in the previous store. On opening day, May 16^th, 1946, the store was crowded with thousands of people prompting the Fort Worth Press to comment that Fort Worth had never seen anything like it.

In 1970, J.C. Penney's closed this store. The building continued to serve as retail space over the years. In 1986, the first floor was converted into a bank lobby and as the flagship store for the Pier 1 Import operation.

The Sanger Brother Building underwent a rehabilitation by Sundance Square, utilizing the Rehabilitation Tax Credit program. It contains retail space and multi-family housing units.

Building Description

The Sanger Brothers Building in downtown Fort Worth was constructed in 1928 and 1929, and is also known as the Sanger Brothers/J.C. Penney Building. The Sanger Brothers Building extends along Fourth Street from Houston to Throckmorton streets. The 90,000 square foot, 5-story 2-part commercial block building is defined by ground floor storefronts with elaborate entry canopies, topped by four floors of office space. Accentuated with Spanish Colonial Revival detailing occurring primarily around window openings, atop pilasters and at the cornice, it is built of reinforced concrete and faced with smooth ashlar.

The Sanger Brothers Building is at a major intersection in downtown Fort Worth, Texas. Once part of a two-block-long retail zone incorporating six major retail stores, it is one of three remaining buildings near the intersection of Houston and Fourth Streets. As the largest extant remainder of the historic retail zone, this building defines the intersection.

The building has three public facades (east, south and west) and an unarticulated party wall to the north. Each public facade has a central recessed entry marked by a finely detailed metal canopy and flanked by large display windows, united by transoms. Metal rosettes run the full face of the canopy framed top and bottom by metal filigree. Highly decorated metal tie rods complete the canopy. The building's character of rhythmic vertical bays is established by ornamented pilasters sitting on a base of storefronts. Balance and symmetry on each facade is achieved by window groupings and detailed pilasters.

Pilasters between paired double-hung windows express the verticality of the building on the upper four stories. Fenestration consists of a single vertical row of double-hung windows on either side of the paired windows which accents the corners of three faces of the building. Paired windows are accented and divided by a turned-wood colonette. The corner windows on the 2^nd floor have an enriched cornice window head with a shell motif. Rope motif columns on either side of the end windows are capped by carved capitals extending up into the window head and graced with a decorative urn shape. The molded sill is accented by two enriched corbels. A decorative iron balconet accented with colonettes similar to those between the paired windows extends across the single window. The corner windows on the 3^rd and 4^th floors have no ornamentation. The single windows on the 5^th floor are accented with a simple molded stone frame topped by fleur de les cartouche with scrolls on either side. A small corbel breaks the frame molding below the windows. These window fenestration and decorations repeat rhythmically across three sides of the building (east, west and south).

Pilasters help define the vertical bays beginning at a 2^nd floor string course and ending at the molded string course capping the 5th-story windows. Each pilaster accented by a decorative bracket below the molded string course. Beneath the string course and bracket on every other pilaster, a shell motif extends down into the string course over the first floor. An ornate capital with a cartouche set below a swan's neck pediment caps the pilasters. The simple molded string course over the 5th-story paired windows is broken by the swan's neck pediment and cartouche capping each pilaster. The cornice is part of an eight-foot high parapet wall articulated with a frieze, consisting of a shell motif and heavy denticulation.

A tall 2-bay wide mechanical room penthouse shields rooftop mechanical equipment and is visible from the street. Its only ornamentation is a simplified cornice with raised diamond shapes and partial corner definition of quoins and rope motif.

The building interior has been altered over the years because of the use of the building during World War II as a United Service Organization (USO) Center. The interior of the western third of the 1^st floor is the least modified portion, with round columns extant. The column cap exhibits a zig-zag detail with a classically inspired band of shells, fleur de lis, and flowers above; columns are unadorned in the eastern third of the 1^st floor. The subsequent floors feature open plans with evenly spaced mushroom columns.

In January of 1946 J.C. Penney's bought the building from the Ft. Worth Service Men's Center in order to expand from their smaller building next door. The basement and first four floors were renovated for retail while the fifth was used for storage of stocks. A complete new lighting system was installed with two miles of fluorescent light tubes. A new 250 ton air conditioning unit washed the air through an automatic oil filter to dehumidify it before passing it onto the merchandising floors. New carpet and new merchandise display fixtures were installed. All 34 display windows were remodeled with the installation of stage and theater lighting to increase the effectiveness of the displays.

Although the building has undergone periodic remodeling since it was vacated by Sanger Brothers, historic materials, detailing and configuration remains unaltered. The exterior remains remarkably intact as well as the character of the large interior spaces. Overall, it retains a high degree of architectural integrity and is an excellent example of a 2-part commercial block with Spanish Colonial Revival style detailing.