Fort Worth’s J & J’s Hideaway to be demolished

by Kevin Buchanan of West and Clear

I’ve heard from a couple of different places now that July 13th is the “end of the road” for J & J’s Hideaway, the west side landmark bar that’s been keeping the locals watered since the ’80s. If you’re a fan, I’d suggest you get a good eyeful of the building’s Mike Brady chic design while you can, because the bulldozers are knocking at the door.

The Hideaway will be falling to Museum Place, the big mixed-use development that’s been slowly but surely working its way back from the big 7th/Camp Bowie/University/Bailey intersection. One building across from the Hideaway, 3300 West 7th, is nearly completed - a modestly-scaled three-story building featuring luxury condos on the upper two floors over a ground-floor retail space that will hold a 7-Eleven Corner Store, a new type of gas pump-less more-upscale neighborhood store 7-Eleven being developed by the company for a future when they won’t be able to sustain themselves on gas and cheap hot dogs anymore. Another building, the big One Museum Place, has topped out at the big intersection and is in its finishing stages. That building will be ground-floor retail, four floors of office space, and three floors of luxury condos. Edgewater Grill has been announced as one of that building’s retail tenants. Still another, a glass & metal triangle-shaped structure now going up at the big intersection on the former Texaco site, will be ground-level retail (I’ve heard rumors of a sushi place) with three floors of office space above it. The avant garde slanted south facade, I’m told, will reflect a view of the Modern back towards the big intersection.

The Hideaway will make way for another large mixed-use building, which will feature ground-level retail with upscale rental apartments above. Not only is the Hideaway going away, but the entirety of Darcy Street itself is going away - the new building will completely cover the current Darcy right-of-way, and the street will cease to exist in that part of the Cultural District.

Several surrounding buildings, such as the rather nasty strip mall that formerly held a Pro-Cuts, have already been demolished near the Hideaway, and the Hideaway’s demolition will be accompanied by the demolition of the old Post Office across the street. The USPS is moving to the big intersection between University and Bailey, into a new Post Office designed by ultramodern architectural firm Venturi, Scott-Brown, and Associates of Philadelphia. The new Post Office will face the big intersection with a wall of ceramic tiles painted with a mural of a huge thunderstorm crossing the prairie, and in front of that will have a public plaza centered around the soon-to-be-reinstalled steel poles bent by the 2000 tornado.