Dallas residents pack City Hall for meeting on building's future

DALLAS - Though a vote to redevelop Dallas City Hall was blocked by a judge Dallas City Council voted to delay approval of repairs on the structure on Wednesday.

Nearly 200 people showed up to the city council meeting to voice their opinion on what the city should do with the I.M. Pei-designed structure.

What we know:

Dallas City Council voted to pause approval of a $770 million repair strategy for Dallas City Hall.

Councilman Chad West raised the motion as a means to determine the cost of repairs against the cost of a new building.

City council asked Kim Tolber, the Dallas City Manager, to explore options for disposing of the current city hall site and come back to the council in August.

Before that vote took place, council members spent four hours in closed session debating whether the city should lease two new properties.

The first would be for relocating the city's 911 and 311 centers, while the second would house other City Hall facilities and functions.

What they're saying:

"July 7 ambush, next to impossible. Snow and ice, FIFA, lockdowns. We could have a difficult time getting to our site here," Kevin Oden, the city's Director of Integrated Public Safety Solutions, said.

Dallas City Council members questioned the potential $40 million cost of moving the 911 and 311 call centers to a location outside City Hall.

Dig deeper:

A Dallas County judge issued a temporary restraining order to block a planned vote on leaving Dallas City Hall and redeveloping the land.

Council members Adam Bazaldua, Paula Blackmon, and Cara Mendelsohn filed a lawsuit on Monday asking for the order. They accused the city of not following its own rules and not giving enough notice for the meeting.

Local perspective:

Residents from both sides of the City Hall argument were ready to speak about the building's future.

"This building we are in right now is the best thing Dallas has," Mick Weisberg told FOX 4's Lori Brown. 

"If you ask someone from Waco or Little Rock, of course they will say Reunion, but a city that aspires to greatness needs both."

Jim Lake told Brown he thinks recent downtown departures came due to the continued debate over City Hall.

"We have had 3–4 major institutions leave downtown and sports teams. We think this is a barrier to redevelopment downtown," Lake told. 

"It's a once in a lifetime opportunity for this generation to activate this sight."

What we don't know:

Tolbert has not provided an estimate of what it would cost the city to leave the current City Hall building and redevelop the surrounding land.

Dallas City Hall's future

The backstory:

The future of Dallas City Hall has been in question since March, when Dallas City Council voted to explore leaving the iconic I.M. Pei-designed structure.

Last Wednesday, experts from two different firms presented options to Dallas City Council that ranged from $530 million to $610 million. Those costs are strictly for repairs and not potential upgrades to the building.

The latest estimates are less than the $1.4 billion estimate to keep the iconic building from February, but more than AECOM's $304 million baseline repair estimate presented in May. The latter estimate included a 10-year plan for repairs.

City council members characterized the fight to save the building as a fight for Dallas itself.

"To me, it's no longer ‘save City Hall’. It's ‘save our city’," Councilwoman Gay Donnell Willis said. "It's been a hard week. We've had a lot of news this week. And, I think we need to not only hear from our experts, but we need to listen to our experts."

"It's not a debate about whether we love an old building, Councilman Adam Bazaldua said last week. "This is a debate whether Dallas has done right by our taxpayers, whether we keep our word protected assets, and, from a process designed to make predetermined outcome look inevitable."

Dig deeper:

The Dallas Mavericks were interested in redeveloping the land around Dallas City Hall for a new arena before opting to purchase land in Far North Dallas last week.

The Dallas Stars also announced their intent to build a new arena at the Shops at Willow Bend mall site in Plano last week, which would leave Downtown Dallas without their two current professional sports teams by 2031.