At 1:22 p.m. on the last day of August, I got a text: Several city employees are touring the Comerica Bank Tower. Which came as no surprise. They’d been there before, I’d been told. Like, repeatedly. The fast-emptying 60-story Philip Johnson-designed highrise has long been considered a — no, the — leading contender as the Dallas City Hall replacement, which may be why all the leasing info has been stripped from the building’s website. But I walked over anyway. I mean, the former Momentum Place sits a whole two whole blocks from the office.
My colleague Devyani Chhetri and I wandered the cavernous, quiet lobby for a bit, and soon discovered that, sure enough, city staffers were on the fifth floor where, a short elevator ride later, we met City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert coming around the corner with a member of her security team trailing behind. There was no one else around.
“What a surprise,” I said, feigning surprise.
“Just here having lunch,” she said, ducking into the restroom.
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None of this awkwardness would have been necessary had Tolbert delivered to council by August what she seemingly promised in June — information about four possible City Hall replacements, including what it would cost to lease them. I say “seemingly” only because there’s some dispute or dissension or confusion — whatever, it’s all semantics at this point — over whether Tolbert actually agreed to bring that info to council last month.
I mean, I thought it was pretty clear. So did the Dallas Business Journal, which reported two weeks ago that “Tolbert missed an August deadline to brief the city council on relocation options for City Hall.” So, too, did members of Your Dallas City Council.
Dallas City Hall. For now.
Staff photo/Dallas Morning News
At a June 17 special-called meeting of the council — way back when city staff and a few council members, including the mayor, were in a hurry to abandon I.M. Pei’s brutalist ziggurat — council member Chad West made a motion for “a final number” to be presented by August. As he said at the time, that would give those opposed to a City Hall relocation, those all-in on a move and “everyone else who’s somewhere in the middle the information we truly need to make an informed decision.”
Shortly thereafter, council member Paula Blackmon asked Tolbert about a timeline. To which Tolbert responded, “I think it would be in my best interest not to assume anything other than the due diligence that I need to bring back during the month of August.”
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In fact, Tolbert later said, it was her intention — her “goal” — to come back to council with information concerning the cost of a replacement before the council approved a budget “so you’ll be able to give additional direction hopefully during that time period.”
The word “August” was used 15 times during that meeting.
Except the council approved a record $6 billion budget on Wednesday, or, as I like to call it, “Sept. 16.” And it has yet to receive any updates about a possible relocation and what it might cost.
From left: Dallas City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert, City Council member Chad West and Mayor Eric Johnson at a special-called City Council meeting on June 10, the week before West motioned for an August update on the status of City Hall’s potential replacements
Staff photo/The Dallas Morning News
I asked several council members Wednesday if they’d received any updates. All said no, they had not. That includes the Save City Hall-ers and those inclined toward a move, including Gay Donnell Willis. District 13’s council rep told WFAA-TV (Channel 8) on Aug. 29 that she was expecting to “get these numbers in the next week or so” and said a vote could soon follow. I texted Wednesday to see if she’d received an update.
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“A potential new city hall (in an existing building) is [a] complex and multi-layered decision and process,” Willis wrote back. “For instance no one has a built-in Council chamber, so that’s a twist on the usual office search.”
“So that’s a no?” I responded.
“Right,” she wrote, “taking longer than expected and from what I was told.”
I asked Far North Dallas’ Cara Mendelsohn, too. Nope. “But am I glad we haven’t gotten it?” She laughed.
If nothing else, game has to respect game. Because a delay sure helps those who would like to separate the relocation issue from the $443 million public safety bond election on Nov. 3, which, among other things, would pay for moving the 911 dispatch center into, likely, the old IBM building in The Cedars.
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“They don’t want to show the obvious connection between this bond and abandoning City Hall,” said Mendelsohn, who’s leading the Bust the Bond campaign to tank the vote.
The exterior of the Comerica Bank Tower in downtown Dallas, before they removed the letters from the building that spelled “Comerica”
Staff photo/The Dallas Morning News
For what it’s worth, the DBJ reported that “demolition cost estimates for the current I.M. Pei-designed building are coming in far higher than city officials anticipated,” which might be contributing to the delay. But who’s to say. I asked a city spokesperson what gives, was asked about a deadline and never heard back by that deadline. Par, meet course.
I texted West earlier this week about the busted deadline. But before we actually spoke on Thursday, he said he asked Tolbert about the delay during Wednesday’s budget wrangling. West said the city manager told him August wasn’t a guarantee, just a goal.
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“What’s frustrating to me is that we were having all these special-called meetings to keep this process moving somewhat quickly, and, for now, there’s seemingly no sense of urgency,” West said. “It makes me question what was the original rush. I have other things I need to do in my district other than argue about the condition of the building with my colleagues. As a city, we have so many other problems we could be focusing on.”
So don’t hold your breath. And don’t try to take the elevator to the fifth floor of the now-former Comerica Bank Tower. I was told this week that our visit there on Aug. 31 was considered a security breach. When I tried to get to the fifth floor again on Wednesday, just for kicks, the elevator was locked down; the lobby, gated off. Man. It already feels like home.