The Tandy Center ice-skating rink: A ticket to glide

It was circa 1977. Ice was in the forecast — and Fort Worth was stoked. (Trust us. Just keep reading.) But this wasn’t the kind that froze streets, closed schools and brought the city to a standstill — it was the fun kind.

Skating and shopping slide into town

“Lace up your skates” isn’t a phrase you hear often in Fort Worth — but it was back then. So was popping into Dillard’s after a spin around the rink, then stopping by RadioShack before lunch at the food court. And, would you believe, all of this happened right in the middle of downtown.

The scene of the action: Tandy Center Mall, which opened as part of the Tandy Center complex in the late 1970s. Located at 100-300 Throckmorton St., the sprawling development brought together twin office towers, an indoor shopping mall and an ice-skating rink — an unlikely trio that drew visitors to Fort Worth's central city.

In this installment of Fort Worth Files, we’re zeroing in on “The Ice,” a downtown destination that gave Cowtown a reason to lace up and glide. (Don’t fret, dear readers: We’ll be highlighting the towers and the mall — actually two malls, to be exact — later in the series.)

“Heaven on ice”

Surrounded by a three-level galleria of shops and eateries, the rink attracted crowds day after day. Look around, and you might spot first-timers wobbling tentatively onto the ice (“Ready, steady, go!”), budding Olympians drilling two-foot turns and bunny hops and excited kiddos showing off their freshest moves on freshly sharpened blades.

The rink was one of the first indoor ice-skating rinks in Texas, not to mention one inside a downtown shopping center. People either showed up with their own skates or borrowed a pair from the rink’s inventory … just name your size and you’d be on the way for a memorable day!

Some showed up for the fun of it, while others, with bigger aspirations or Olympic dreams, went there for skating lessons. No matter the reason, the price of admission promised a memorable day on the ice.

Vintage promotional materials touted it as “Heaven on ice,” and business boomed for years … until it didn’t.

The melting point

As they say, all good things must come to an end. Faced with competition from more modern retail destinations and other entertainment options — along with various other reasons, to be explored in an upcoming article — demand for the Tandy Center mall and ice rink thawed during the 1990s. In the early 2000s, both venues closed.

But for roughly 25 years, legions of Fort Worthians laced up their skates and let loose at this one-of-a-kind downtown locale, where temperatures stayed cold and the ice always stuck the landing.

Cover photo: Ice skaters on the rink inside Tandy Center, which housed RadioShack's headquarters and the shopping mall, 1981. Note the overhead escalators, which shoppers used to access the stores above. (Photo: Fort Worth History Center, Fort Worth Public Library.)

Skaters twirl beneath a 20-by-30-foot American flag, Feb. 13, 1991. The mall hung the flag above the rink in honor of armed forces stationed in Saudi Arabia for Operation Desert Storm. (Photo: Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection, University of Texas at Arlington Libraries.)

The rink on Oct. 2, 1977. (Photo: Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection, University of Texas at Arlington Libraries.)

Cover of the RadioShack Intercom, a monthly newsletter for employees of Tandy Corp.'s RadioShack division, February 1986. The Texas Sesquicentennial flag and the American flag fly on the east end of the rink. (Photo: RadioShack and Tandy Corp. Records, provided by the UNT Libraries Special Collections to The Portal to Texas History.)

RadioShack Intercom holiday edition cover with Santa on skates, December 1977. (Photo: RadioShack and Tandy Corp. records, provided by the UNT Libraries Special Collections to The Portal to Texas History.)

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