Mayor Eric Johnson laid out the promise of Dallas during his State of the City address on Thursday, touting the gains made over the past several years and highlighting the Big D’s status as a top destination for business and investment.
The speech was livestreamed from the new Texas Stock Exchange at its temporary offices at Weir’s Plaza, an appropriate venue considering the city’s rising star in the financial sector. Johnson’s been a cheerleader for Y’all Street as a growing number of firms relocate to Dallas.
Mayor Eric Johnson delivering the 2025 State of the City address at the Texas Stock Exchange’s temporary headquarters
“Our region has added 100,000 new finance jobs in the past decade, and we are now second only to New York in the size of our financial services sector,” he said, asserting that Y’all Street is positioned to eventually overtake Wall Street.
He highlighted the steady stream of corporate relocations and investments bolstering the local economy and transforming the cityscape, citing pro-business policies for making Dallas a desirable place for companies.
“We’ve also only just begun making game-changing investments in our future through a $1.25 billion bond package that our voters approved last year,” he said. “These investments will capitalize on and support our growing tax base, which has grown by $27 billion in new development since I took office.”
Speaking of tax base, the mayor also pointed to several consecutive years of property tax rate reductions adopted by the city council. No doubt homeowners have been chafing under sky-high valuations and their corresponding tax bills, but at the same time, the rate reductions are having an impact on city coffers, which are having a hard time keeping up with the city’s spending plans.
Nevertheless, Johnson seemed to balance the city’s economic wins against the tenuous situation downtown, which has sustained multiple outbound company migrations and is facing the possible exodus of AT&T, the Mavericks, and the Stars.
Credit: Mimi Perez for CandysDirt.com
“To the leaders of AT&T and our other longtime downtown partners, we want you here, and your company and your employees deserve to be in a city that is as big as your ambitions,” he said, also stating the city would take “all reasonable necessary steps” to keep its NBA and NHL teams.
When it came to city operations, Johnson took a victory lap on significant reductions in crime and lauded City Manager Kimberly Tolbert for modernizing various functions and achieving commendable metrics on important fronts.
“Homelessness is down, child poverty is down. Our residential development code and parking code have both been streamlined, and we’re now issuing building permits faster than ever,” he said.
Johnson outlined his hopes for further reform. He pointed to his creation of the Government Efficiency Committee under Council Member Maxie Johnson (District 4), and said he tasked Council Member Cara Mendelsohn (District 12), chair of the Public Safety Committee, with developing a comprehensive policy to continue the city’s “war on violent crime.”
He also appeared to make his position clear on the fate of 1500 Marilla St.
“City Hall, as it stands today, is not a user-friendly building for people, and it risks becoming an albatross for our city,” Johnson said. “Whatever the intentions of a famous architect, it has become a massive symbol of a Byzantine bureaucracy that’s stuck in the past and falling apart, its shortcomings masked by a Brutalist facade. As a workplace for city employees and as a gathering place for the public, it’s clearly failing.”
Credit: Mimi Perez for CandysDirt.com
On Wednesday, a majority of the city council voted to direct Tolbert to explore alternative options to 1500 Marilla St. as a base of city operations. Part of the resolution includes instructions to compare the price of relocation to rehabilitating City Hall, which has suffered from years of deferred maintenance.
Both this week and last, dozens of residents turned out to speak in favor of preserving the I.M.-Pei-designed building, which has become an iconic part of Dallas’ cityscape since it was constructed in the 1970s. While some officials are insisting that Wednesday’s vote is simply the city doing its due diligence, others have criticized the process as rushed and evidence of some kind of behind-the-scenes agreement. Only Council Members Paula Blackmon (District 9), Mendelsohn, and Paul Ridley (District 14) voted against the resolution.
“A lot of people came down to talk to us about saving City Hall, but we’ve also had people email us, call us, talk to us on the street about wanting to explore the options,” Council Member Gay Donnell Willis (District 13) said during the meeting. “So if we’re listening to the people, we’re hearing we need to look at that whole menu.”
Deferred maintenance has been a serious issue across the city’s real estate portfolio, but the City Hall drama really kicked up when Johnson created the Finance Committee and charged it with determining whether 1500 Marilla St. was serving the best financial interests of taxpayers.
Acknowledging he is nearing the homestretch of his last term as mayor, Johnson noted how many of the issues facing Dallas will outlast his administration and be taken up by others hoping to improve the city.
“Dallas is a great city that is always evolving and has defied the odds to become something it was never supposed to be — a shining star on the global stage,” he said. “But where we are today is still not where we’re ultimately going. This has always been the Dallas story, a story that has been written and rewritten over and over again by each generation and by each leader of the city who carries the baton forward.”