To the north of the Cultural District is Museum Place, a large mixed-use development capitalizing on the new museum facilities. A tornado in 2000 tore along W. 7th Street toward downtown, providing ad hoc clearance of commercial and warehouse buildings and an impetus to develop 1.5 miles of the street into a more formal connection between downtown and the Cultural District, guided by a 2002 master plan (JHP Architecture/Urban Design).
The south facade of the post office branch, facing the intersection, is covered by an image by photographer Wyman Meinzer of the west Texas sky that alludes both to the waving American flag and to the tornado that destroyed the billboard whose torqued steel supports on the south lawn now function as a kind of sculptural trace for the event. The postal motto “… neither rain nor heat …’ follows the horizon line at the bottom of the image. As with many projects by Philadelphia architects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, the shell construction of the post office and its interior finishes are spartan but competent. The north facade is entirely glazed to expose the inner workings of the building.