Carlos Gonzalez-Jaime carefully stepped through the debris of an old building in north Fort Worth, absorbing the historic transformation of a place built by one of the most infamous hate groups in America.
The sounds of construction workers sawing through bricks and knocking down graffitied walls echoed around the 70,000-square-foot building. Sunlight illuminated the space, streaming through the broken roof and dozens of windows lining the top half of the structure.
Gonzalez-Jaime, executive director of Transform 1012, stopped for a second to examine the space opening up around him. He described the feelings rushing through his body as comfort and excitement.
After all, the historic building at 1012 N. Main St. is officially entering the demolition phase of construction before becoming the Fred Rouse Center for Arts and Community Healing.
“It’s a very special day, witnessing the physical transformation of the building and that we’ve made it to this point,” Gonzalez-Jaime said during an Aug. 26 tour.
Contractors now are cleaning up trash and building materials, removing nonhistorical interior structures and creating new openings in the historic building to enable equipment to enter, Gonzalez-Jaime said.
Crews are working to preserve as much of the building’s shell as possible as demolition continues over the next six weeks, ending in mid-October.
Since 2019, the nonprofit Transform 1012 has sought to transform a former Ku Klux Klan auditorium into a community hub that honors the memory of Fred Rouse, a Black man who was lynched in 1921 in Fort Worth by a white mob.
Rouse, who was removed from his hospital bed where he was recovering from another attack, is the only recorded lynching victim in Tarrant County. A separate memorial park in his honor is expected to be completed in December.
Ku Klux Klan Klavern No. 101’s Auditorium was built in the 1920s, burned down and was rebuilt shortly after. Throughout its history, the site has hosted boxing matches, concerts and businesses. It has sat vacant for several years.
Plans for the new arts hub include performance space, meeting rooms, an area for an outdoor urban marketplace and workspace for artists. The nonprofit officials want the community center to offer historical exhibits and services for underserved and LGBTQ+ youth.
Greg Robertson, director of development at Transform 1012, walked through the demolition for the first time Aug. 26. He was struck by the abundance of natural light that creeps through the structure after only seeing the building in its previous, neglected state.
“It just gave me that small sense of this idea that we’re going to be spilling all this light and joy into something that was dark before,” he said.
Redevelopment of the KKK hall was originally expected to cost $43 million, Gonzalez-Jaime said, but the budget spiked as the cost of materials rose. He declined to share the project’s new cost as the nonprofit prepares to raise additional funds.
In May, Transform 1012 and The Welman Project, a west Fort Worth nonprofit that provides free supplies for educators, lost $109,900 tied to the auditorium’s transformation after the National Endowment for the Arts began abruptly withdrawing funding for cultural institutions nationwide.
Gonzalez-Jaime said the nonprofits were “disappointed” to lose the grants but stressed that it hasn’t hindered their mission.
“We are definitely still working with public funds but are looking for private funding with local and national foundations,” he said. “It’s no different from other times. In most of the nonprofit world, you need to have different supporters, and that’s what we are trying to do.”
Transform 1012’s design team — Dennis Chiessa of ch_studio, Germane Barnes of Studio Barnes, and Maria Gomez of GFF — expects to have a first concept design this fall.
After communities provide feedback on the design, construction on the arts hub will begin in early 2027 with a grand opening slated for 2028.
Gonzalez-Jaime knows the arts hub is years away, but he believes the space will be a transformative moment for Fort Worth once it opens its doors.
“The center is going to be a space for reflection and to tell the truth about the bad things that happen in our city, but the most important part is that it will bring communities together,” he said.
David Moreno is the arts and culture reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at david.moreno@fortworthreport.org or @davidmreports.
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