Is Fort Worth’s saucer-shaped arena a landmark? Nostalgia for the downtown venue grows
Nostalgia for Fort Worth’s 50-year-old downtown arena ballooned on social media after news the iconic saucer-shaped dome would be torn down to make room for a larger convention center.
As part of a nearly $500 million plan to expand the Fort Worth Convention Center, the arena will likely be bulldozed and replaced with a large exhibit hall, meeting rooms and an outdoor public space with art. The expansion is necessary to capture a growing tourism market that supports downtown businesses, said Bob Jameson, president and CEO of Visit Fort Worth, the city’s tourism bureau. The arena no longer serves the center’s needs, he said.
That didn’t settle well with some Facebook users who fondly remember seeing rock stars, athletes and others at the arena.
“My dad camped out there with me in the late 70’s to get Bee Gees tickets! Sad to see it go!” Teresa Howard Anderson said in a comment on the Star-Telegram’s Facebook page.
In its glory days, the arena hosted big name performers.
Elvis played nine shows in three visits to the saucer. Eric Clapton, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and others packed the dome during its heyday. Footage of the arena was featured in U2’s 1988 live album and rock documentary “Rattle and Hum” when the band played in November 1987 with B.B. King.
Athletes like gymnastics star Nadia Comaneci and tennis stars Andre Agassi and John McEnroe competed there.
Melvin Morgan, 74 of Azle, worked at the arena for more than 20 years, rising from food service to be the executive director. Back then the arena could handle “anything and everything.” He recalled a week in the mid-1990s when the arena hosted a Dallas Mavericks exhibition basketball game, followed by a Disney On Ice show, a hockey game and a car show.
“That hockey game finished on a Tuesday, so we had to melt the ice real fast and squeegee it out so we could lay carpet,” he said. ‘It was an extremely busy 10 days.”
Though big name acts will play the 14,500-seat Dickies Arena in the Cultural District, the convention center will still need a 7,000 to 9,000-seat arena, Jameson said. That space has to be significantly more flexible than the circular arena so it can be used for multiple types of events and possibly double as exhibit hall space.
The city has been discussing plans to tear down the arena since 2015.
Fort Worth landmark
Andy Taft, president of Downtown Fort Worth Inc. and a member of the design review committee the city established for the convention center expansion, said he and the committee understood nostalgia for the arena.
“People grew up with it, they saw Elvis there and they value the architecture as an example of its form, so I think some people should feel attached to it,” Taft said. “But that land does represent the best opportunity for us to expand.”
The design of the arena and the way people enter the convention center, even when there is an event in the saucer, creates a dead zone on all three sides of the saucer, Taft said. Redesigning that part of the block will reactive the space and create a “front door” to downtown from the convention center, he said.
The architecture of the arena has been a major debate, said John Roberts, a local architect and member of Historic Fort Worth. He leads monthly walking tours of historic downtown buildings. The saucer sparks conversation among vistors who either love its unique shape or think it is a bad example of Brutalist architecture worthy of the wrecking ball.
“You either love it or you hate it,” he said.
The arena would qualify for some historic designations, Roberts said. It is one of the largest buildings constructed during Fort Worth’s attempted urban renewal in the 1960s and was built on top of the famed Hell’s Half Acre.
Though Morgan has fond memories of his career at the convention center, he agreed that the arena has outlived its usefulness.
By the late 1990s it had become cumbersome to maintain, he said, recalling an expensive effort to remove asbestos. Multiple times the roof had to be repaired, he said, including a period where black tar was used to patch holes in the bright white roof, creating an “embarrassing” eyesore.
“It was the darndest thing you ever saw,” he said of the black and white roof. “And still leaked like a sieve.”
Facebook reactions
Not everyone on social media was sad to see it go.
When sharing a Star-Telegram story of Facebook, Stephanie Johnson Robertson said the arena had been a staple of her life and recalled seeing a Ringling Bros. Circus and Janet Jackson. But, she said, it was time to move on.
“It’s time for this to come down,” she wrote.
Some less nostalgic Facebook users thought the city should focus on Fort Worth’s growing infrastructure needs first.
“Wow about we fix the roads in north Fort Worth first? That is vital to the actual taxpayers!” Kole Wade said.
Even Panther Island, the $1.17 billion dollar Trinity River project that lacks needed federal dollars, came up in posts.
“City of Fort Worth, how about fixing the flooding on the East side first... then that hideous bridge over land on Henderson/Jacksboro Hwy,” Norma Mascorro Keyser wrote, referring to one of three behind schedule bridges currently being built over dry land for the Panther Island project.
