Update:
This story has been updated to reflect the results of the Aug. 5 meeting with the Dallas Landmark Commission and what's next for the property.
Belmont Hotel owners pursue historic status to revive iconic West Dallas building
‘Dallas deserves this magic place,’ said Jordan Ford, whose family owns the West Dallas property.
By Anna Butler
It’s been almost a decade since ownership changed for the Belmont Hotel, a West Dallas hospitality property along Fort Worth Avenue designed by famed architect Charles Dilbeck.
The hotel, its stark walls bending in undulating alcoves along its facade, shuttered during the COVID-19 pandemic after undergoing several large-scale and expensive renovations, according to the property’s ownership, an entity called Diamond Belmont Properties LLC tied to Dallas’ Ford family.
Belmont’s ownership is working with the city and surrounding neighborhood so the property can be preserved while ensuring full operation and development of the site. That requires the creation of an ordinance to preserve the buildings, while simultaneously modernizing the entitlements that make it difficult to operate sustainably.
The Belmont went before the Dallas Landmark Commission on Aug. 5 for a hearing after it was deferred last month. It was determined the owner would once again convene with the Landmark Commission’s Designation Committee as it seeks a solution both to preserve the property and make it fit ownership’s business needs.
“[The Belmont] was a place in Dallas that was inclusive to the arts, the outsiders, the insiders, the creatives and the community of those that love this city,” Jordan Ford, part of the ownership behind the hotel, said in an email. “It was a place for those from our city, and for those that migrated to our city with dreams and desires. It’s a place where each may relax in those dreams while taking in the view of the aspirational Dallas skyline. The Belmont is special because of its individuality. It can host all those that dream to be included in the future of Dallas. Dallas deserves this magic place.”
Adding a historic overlay to the property and updating entitlements now stand as the missing pieces to the complicated equation to bringing the Belmont to its full, operable stature.
The project is set to go before the Dallas City Plan Commission to reinitiate the historic overlay on Thursday, which is considered a significant step forward.
The hotel, on a hillside at the corner of Fort Worth and Sylvan avenues, opened in 1947 as the Belmont Motor Hotel. Nearly 60 years later, developer Monte Anderson reworked the property before selling it to the Ford entity in 2015.
Since 2019, upgrades to the property have been made with input from the city staff, according to Belmont ownership. Those included improvements to some guest rooms and addressed structural and mechanical needs.
In recent years, the woes of the Belmont have mirrored the challenges across commercial real estate. The hit from the pandemic was enough to force the closure of the 64-room property as it was operating. The winter storm in 2021 knocked out about 60% of the property’s guest rooms, some of which were newly renovated units. Volatile construction costs and a tight capital markets climate have slowed progress as well.
Late last year, one push to restore the Belmont included a collaboration with Dallas developer Todd Interests, the group behind the East Quarter’s resurgence. Details were scarce for the vision, but that ultimately dissolved.
Belmont has engaged Jake Milner and Scott Lake of Davidson Bogel Real Estate to advance the project.
During the Landmark Commission hearing on Aug. 5, Ford said working with the commission over the past month has reinvigorated his understanding of the project and the public’s interest in it. He said it would behoove him to act on the momentum created and not rest on it.
“I do not want to wait, I have no intention to wait, I am prepared to put together the additional assets that need to be on this team, and spend the money to get this done,” said Ford.
