Fort Worth explosion: Sandman hotel opened in 2023 in one of city’s most iconic towers

The Sandman Signature Hotel in downtown Fort Worth, where an explosion injured multiple people Monday, opened less than a year ago in one of the city’s most historic towers.

The iconic W.T. Waggoner Building at 810 Houston St. is 20 stories, which made it one of the tallest buildings in Texas and the Southwest when it was built in 1920 as a bank.

A Vancouver-based company led by Dallas Stars hockey team owner Tom Gaglardi purchased the tower in 2018 with the intent to renovate the building for the hotel. The company, Northland Properties, is Canada’s largest privately owned hospitality company with hotels and resorts across Canada and, more recently, in the U.K.

City building permits estimated the project cost $16 million to convert the former office tower into the hotel.

The premium-priced Sandman Signature Hotel opened in March 2022 with 245 rooms, a ground-level bar and the basement-level restaurant called Musume, where the explosion is thought to have occurred. The flashy contemporary Asian restaurant and sushi bar started in Dallas and expanded to downtown Fort Worth last summer.

At the Sandman hotel’s opening, rooms were listed from $160 to more than $400 per night.

This is the second Sandman Signature Hotel to open in the United States; the first was built in 2018 in Plano.

The Sandman is one of several boutique hotels that have opened inside restored, ornate high-rises that once housed Fort Worth oil and gas companies. The Waggoner Building, designed to resemble New York’s Equitable Building, was once owned by XTO Energy, which later moved its headquarters to Houston.

The skyscraper’s namesake was William Thomas Waggoner, a wealthy rancher and oilman born in 1852. He moved to Fort Worth around 1904, was a director of the First National Bank and built two office buildings, according to the Texas State Historical Association. He also built the Arlington Downs Racetrack and was a donor for three buildings at Texas Woman’s College at Denton before he died in 1934.

The building’s elevator lobby and ground floor bank was restored about 20 years ago to the way much of it looked when the Continental National Bank was the first occupant of the building.

This story was originally published January 8, 2024 at 5:50 PM.

Matt Leclercq

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Matt Leclercq is senior managing editor at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He previously was an editor at USA Today in Washington, national news editor at Gatehouse Media in Austin, and executive editor of The Fayetteville (NC) Observer. He’s a New Orleans native.