Nathan Hunsinger
Audio By Carbonatix
The Dallas City Council appears torn on what to do about City Hall, a building touting equal parts historical significance and wear and tear, but one message came through clearly during Tuesday’s discussion on the matter: the status quo cannot continue.
During a briefing given by city staff to the council’s Finance Committee (and a few visiting council members), Director of Facilities and Real Estate Management John Johnson told the council that years of deferred maintenance at Marilla Street have left the city staring down the barrel of up to $345 million in “under the hood” repairs. That’s hundreds of millions of dollars more than an estimate that was given last summer during bond negotiations, which, in the end, saw nothing allocated to addressing foundation, HVAC, water infiltration and accessibility issues across the 47-year-old facility.
“Staff has been asking the city council to address major deferred maintenance items since at least 2017,” said Johnson, adding that maintenance propositions are typically unpopular with voters who approve bond allocations because residents would prefer funds to go towards “bright and shiny new items.”
Johnson added that the city’s annual budget allocates around $36 million to facility operations, but only around $4.5 million of that goes towards maintenance costs across all of the city’s properties.
Three options were presented to the council: doing nothing, addressing issues as they arise, finding the funds to renovate City Hall, or exploring alternatives such as selling the building and finding a new home base for the city’s governance. Council members Paul Ridley, Cara Mendelsohn and Bill Roth opposed the idea of giving up the facility, which was designed by the renowned architect I.M. Pei and is fully paid off by the city. Council members Chad West, Jesse Moreno and Adam Bazaldua did not state which option they preferred in such a straightforward manner.
Council members Kathy Stewart, Zarin Gracey, Maxie Johnson, Jaime Resendez, Gay Donnell Willis and Paula Blackmon expressed varying levels of support for the third option; some said they were merely “leaning towards” exploring alternative options, while others embraced the financial benefits that could come from abandoning the million-square-foot building.
“When I look at a list that includes things like fire suppression and ADA compliance, along with HVAC and roof replacement, if you saw these in your home or your workplace, these would be of tremendous concern,” Willis said. “We’re looking at these numbers, and they’re really big.”
For Maxie Johnson, the newly elected council member who chairs the Government Efficiency committee, option three is an opportunity for council members to stop “kicking the can down the road” and embrace “prudent and efficient” governance.
But for as much conversation and speculation as City Hall’s future has inspired in recent months, the briefing offered few answers about what the reality of any of that future is. If council decides to refurbish the facility, they could do so through bond funds, but that would leave the work years away and risk the funding not being approved by voters. If the city’s government were to move to a new location, there’s no saying where they would go, how much that would cost, or what the timeline would be.
At the very least, it would take a year to start moving departments out, John Johnson said.
Estimates for the financials needed to fix City Hall’s issues were cobbled together from estimates dating back to 2000. A new, comprehensive assessment would take up to two years to complete, Johnson told the council. At one point, noting that an abundance of developers sat in the council chamber, West asked one of them to approach the microphone to speak as an expert on downtown real estate market conditions.
Mendelsohn called the idea of leaving City Hall an “absolutely insane” one, and speculated that City Staff was guiding the horseshoe towards option three as part of a premeditated “real estate play.” While West, who chairs the committee, asked members to address only the state of City Hall without verging into the theory that the Dallas Mavericks professional basketball team may be interested in the land on Marilla Street. Mendelsohn added that “unless [the city has] a deal with the Mavericks,” she didn’t want to discuss selling.
“You said [maintenance] could possibly be $100 million. That was February 14th, 2024. And now we’re talking about over $300 million. We don’t have that kind of inflation, so something has happened. I think that staff is steering us to get rid of this building. And I think you want it for other uses,” Mendelsohn said. “This is a budgeting failure. This building is not a failure.”
The committee requested additional economic information at its next meeting before making a decision. Among the requested information is an analysis of what it will cost to stay at city hall versus what it will cost to move out and go somewhere else and what that rent payment would be.
A more in-depth analysis of what is truly needed to fix up City Hall was requested, too.
“I think there’s going to be a cascading effect when we start making repairs to the building. We could give you a $300 million estimate today, and the first time that we start hammering into these old walls, we could come back to this body and say, ‘We just found out we need another $50 million worth of change orders for a whole range of issues,’” said Assistant City Manager Donzell Gipson. “I wouldn’t want to ask the council for a blank check on this building … but there’s so many unknowns.”
