Transform 1012 N. Main Street, a Fort Worth nonprofit coalition established by eight local organizations and entities, released on July 20 a design concept for a planned cultural hub to be housed at a building that once served as Ku Klux Klan headquarters.<\/p>\n
The Transform 1012 Center for Arts and Community Healing, located at 1012 N. Main St., will be dedicated to expression, truth and reconnecting the Fort Worth community, said Carlos Gonzalez-Jaime, executive director for Transform 1012.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe building was very dark, metaphorically and physically,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, how can we make it exactly the opposite? Make it a place of light.\u201d<\/p>\n
Transform 1012 plans to keep the Northside structure\u2019s existing frame and introduce a new interior. Organized into three levels, the building will include a 250-seat theater, two dance rehearsal rooms, classrooms, galleries and an outdoor reflection space.<\/p>\n
The auditorium constructed by the Ku Klux Klan Klavern No. 101 in 1921 will be transfigured into a space that acknowledges the building\u2019s history while supporting the current community, Gonzalez-Jaime said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re gonna talk about the KKK inside the exhibition because it needs to talk about the history of the building,\u201d Gonzalez-Jaime said. \u201cSo once you learn about what has happened in North Texas, maybe you\u2019ll need a space to reflect.\u201d<\/p>\n
The concept\u2019s reflection garden was one of a few elements requested by the community, which since 2023 has been involved in the design process through public conversations held by the nonprofit. The discussions helped decide the project\u2019s architect, whether to tear the building down and how the space would be reused.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s learning from history to make a better city,\u201d Gonzalez-Jaime said. \u201cTo have this opportunity to discuss, to know our communities and then to make a proposal of what they were envisioning.\u201d<\/p>\n
The KKK intentionally built the auditorium to divide immigrants and intimidate them into staying away during Fort Worth\u2019s economic boom, Gonzalez-Jaime said. Transform 1012\u2019s intention is to restitch the city\u2019s north and south regions through a sacred space that reflects on its past, he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really hard to confront history,\u201d Gonzalez-Jaime said. \u201cThat\u2019s what we want to do, but to also create hope. It\u2019s not about how bad things are or where. It\u2019s about how we can work together to make this better for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since 2019, the building was planned to be repurposed into a cultural hub that honors the memory of Fred Rouse, a Black father and butcher who was lynched in Fort Worth by a white mob in 1924.<\/p>\n
\u201cCentral to the institution is the memory of Mr. Fred Rouse,\u201d read a release on the unveiling of the design. \u201cThe second-floor gallery will share the histories of race relations in North Texas, keeping his story present through permanent memorialization, interpretive exhibitions, and educational programming.\u201d<\/p>\n
Transform 1012 purchased the building in 2022 and began the demolition phase<\/a> in late 2025. While the design concept is complete, there are a few more steps before the project can begin.<\/p>\n The nonprofit will hold three more public conversations across Fort Worth to ensure the community\u2019s approval of the building\u2019s design and plan for future uses of its different spaces: July 25 at Blank Space<\/a>, Aug. 22 at the Ella Mae Shamblee Library<\/a> and another in September at a site to be determined.<\/p>\n Attendees will be asked to share their stories with the building to be included in the permanent exhibition dedicated to the building\u2019s history, Gonzalez-Jaime said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is your center,\u201d he said. \u201cLet\u2019s make this a place that everybody can see \u2026 come inside and enjoy what is happening.\u201d<\/p>\n The project aims to break ground in summer 2027 with its target opening in the winter of 2028.<\/p>\n Ash Petrie is a reporting fellow for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at ash@fortworthreport.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n Disclosure: Fort Worth Report director of membership Ayesha Ganguly is co-founder and board chair of Transform 1012 N. Main Street. At the Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here<\/a>.<\/p>\n This article<\/a> first appeared on Fort Worth Report<\/a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Transform 1012 N. Main Street, a Fort Worth nonprofit coalition established by eight local organizations and entities, released…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-386167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}