Fort Worth’s Victory Arts Center Once Home to the Loyal

He had successfully found the perfect spot to market his work – an old convent that had been a Catholic theater, added a junior college, and is now home to some artists in Fort Worth, TX.

He showed me the tiny space now that he had decorated impressively with his own personal touch and taste and told me how it used to be a classroom.

In 1909 Our Lady of Victory Academy, as it was called then was designed by the Fort Worth prominent architectural firm of Sanguinet and Staats.

In 1910 The Our Lady of Victory Academy opened as a day school and boarding school for young women and girls then in the 1930s a junior college was added.

In 1956 the college and the novitiate were moved to the University of Dallas.

The high school stopped taking boarders in 1961 and in the 1980s upkeep of the convent became too hard for the few elderly sisters remaining there. In 1991 they sought to obtain a demolition permit for the building but in 1992 Historic Landmarks, Inc. was founded and bought the building for $60,000, the same price as my house I live in.

In 1993 a fundraiser was held at a club with over 500 people in attendance in March.

In 2002 funding was secured and construction began to renovate the building into the Victory Arts Center, a residential and studio space designed especially for the local arts community.

Last year it opened its doors.

The building is a City of Fort Worth Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The center at 801 Shaw Street is located behind a still thriving Catholic school, right down the street from where a friend of mine lives, who grew up Catholic.

Designed especially for the creative community the center consists of 46 spacious loft apartments and artists’ studios.

Features include high ceilings, hardwood, terrazzo, and stained concrete floors, period light fixtures, extraordinary natural light, exterior courtyards and decks, oversized elevator, and loading dock.

Optional amenities include a security system, cable t.v., and Internet connections.

The newest artist studios include a wearable art company and a ballet school, among others.

In April 2000 Ray Boothe envisioned an oasis for artists, a place where they could live, work, and perform at the completed $6.5 million center in South Fort Worth. Boothe, president of the nonprofit Historic Landmarks, saw artists flocking to the former convent. His company, Fort Worth-based Daedalus Development Corporation, started drawings back then for the 70,000-square-foot building.

By the summer of 2001 Daedalus was scheduled to complete restoration of the five-story building but other than a theater area and some restrooms constructed in 1998, the project was delayed while funds were raised, Boothe said.

Historic Landmarks, which was doing business as ArtSpace Texas, bought the building from the Sisters of St. Mary Namour, who still own that neighboring school and sister’s retirement center to “save it” and restored it to its original Gothic architecture, Booth said.

“Then the community got involved in the process and they said they would like to see it used as an arts center,” he said.

Former classrooms to the building were converted to one- two-and three bedroom apartments, running from 750 to 2,300 square feet and renting for $500 to $1,500.00.

Artists from nearby Texas Christian University (TCU) would also be drawn to live at the arts center, said Boothe.

Historic converted a former chapel in the building into a 3,500-square-foot performing- arts center while preserving its vaulted, plaster ceiling and maple floors.

The space includes a catering kitchen and can host functions for 100 to 215 people.

The Sage & Silo Theatre Company leased a 3,500-square-foot theater at the center and was expected to stay when the project was completed if it could afford the rent. But after a short run of comical Catholic plays there it shut its doors despite glowing reviews.

The Victory Arts Center showed the commitment people have to restore historic properties in South Fort Worth, said Don Scott, president of Fort Worth South.

“It’s the same kind of passion that underlies more pragmatic developments we do here in South Fort Worth,” he said.

Boothe also has been instrumental in restoring the Modern Drugs store on Hemphill Street and shop fronts on South Main Street in Fort Worth.

To contact the staff of Victory Arts call 817-920-0971.