Some council members are seeking data and estimates from a thorough building inspection. Others feel a consequential vote in the next two weeks is rushing the process.
By Devyani Chhetri and María Ramos Pacheco
Dallas Morning News
https://www.dallasnews.com/
1977 File Photo / Staff
In two weeks, the Dallas City Council is expected to vote on whether to explore sites for a new City Hall.
While many council members have declined to share where they stand on this issue, at least two have said they have reservations about the timeline if the vote occurs sooner rather than later.
“What [City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert] told me is that the vote that they’re going to probably ask for in two weeks is for us to give them direction to go look at other options,” council member Chad West told The Dallas Morning News when reached by phone Friday afternoon, adding that city officials were anticipating that council members could provide direction based on numbers that are coming out.
Council member Paul Ridley said Tolbert was rushing to make a decision before the end of the year without disclosing why.
“Nobody understands why it’s so urgent, but the city manager is pushing this,” Ridley said.
Discussions of City Hall repairs have been on the back burner for years. Most recently, city officials told council members that repair costs could range between $150 million to more than $345 million. Water leaks, damages to the foundation, structural issues in the parking garage, and outdated electrical and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems, are among the list of issues plaguing the building. But the true cost of repairs will not be known until a full inspection of the building occurs in 2026.
The question on every council member’s mind, however, is whether the nearly 50-year-old building was salvageable after years of deferred maintenance.
In the first week of November, city officials are expected to present more data points and cost comparisons.
Just days ago, city officials presented three scenarios for City Hall’s future. Keep the building as is or repair the building. A third scenario involves looking for alternative sites to lease or build a new City Hall.
The spectre of what could be a consequential decision in two weeks didn’t sit right with council member Zarin Gracey. “I’ll be honest, I don’t like that,” he said. “I don’t want this to be something that feels like we’re trying to sneak something past.”
The city’s original intent, he said, was to do the analysis and present it to the public. “But I don’t want to bypass those folks who have preservation concerns and art concerns and all of those, those things,” he said. “I hope that’s not the intent of this.”
Council member Jaime Resendez said he supports allowing staff to evaluate relocation costs and price points. “Doing our due diligence is essential to ensure we’re making responsible, informed choices,” said Resendez via text.
“Staff is in the process of providing information to identify the most financially responsible options for Dallas City Hall,” Tolbert said in a statement to The Dallas Morning News. “This is in direct response to Mayor Eric Johnson’s policy priority for the City Council’s Finance Committee. The deferred maintenance needs did not surface overnight. They will continue to grow, and they are not easy fixes.”
Tolbert said city staff would continue working with the Finance Committee, and the City Council would “ultimately make the final decision on city hall’s future.”
All but five council members did not respond to requests for comment sent via text, phone and email. Mayor Eric Johnson did not respond to a request for comment.
‘Save City Hall’
While these discussions are underway, there are also questions about whether the land the building sits on is suitable for a new Dallas Mavericks sports arena. City officials have expressed their desire to keep the basketball team downtown. A revamped Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center is expected to anchor massive redevelopment in the area abutting Interstate 30.
There’s also widespread anxiety about the future of downtown itself, and a large part of that discourse is centered on whether AT&T will move its headquarters to the suburbs. The telecommunications company has been scoping sites around Plano, Frisco and Irving. But that may not bode well for a city that’s banking on maintaining its downtown as its economic engine.
Ridley, who has been resolutely opposed to tearing down City Hall, and council member Cara Mendelsohn, seeking more information, are hosting a town hall Monday evening to gather public input.
“It’s very one-sided in terms of constituent opinion,” Ridley said. “I’m getting a ton of emails saying, ‘Save City Hall.’”
Mendelsohn said she would reserve her comments until more information is available. In a meeting discussion last week, she signaled her support for staying in the building. She was concerned developers were driving the conversation about the future of City Hall and accused city staff of pushing to abandon the building rather than fixing it.
Council member Paula Blackmon said she was not aware of the vote expected to occur in two weeks. But if that is the case, she also wants an engineering assessment that includes real numbers and not “back-of-the-napkin numbers.”
“Today, if I had to make a decision, I would not be comfortable making a very sound decision because I don’t have enough information,” Blackmon said.
Dallas City Hall opened in 1978 and was designed by renowned architect I.M. Pei. In March, the city’s landmark commission unanimously voted to begin the designation process for the building to be a landmark, further complicating the issue.
Before joining the Dallas Morning News, Devyani Chhetri covered South Carolina politics and presidential primaries at the Greenville News. She went to Boston University for graduate school.
María Ramos Pacheco is a reporter on the local government team. Before joining The News, María was a reporter at El Paso Matters and attended the University of Texas at El Paso. She is from Chihuahua, Mx, where her love for journalism was formed.
This story, originally published in The Dallas Morning News, is reprinted as part of a collaborative partnership between The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News. The partnership seeks to boost coverage of Dallas’ communities of color, particularly in southern Dallas.
