{"id":235789,"date":"2026-04-05T07:27:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T07:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/235789\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T07:27:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T07:27:08","slug":"dallas-city-managers-missteps-could-cost-us-with-mavs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/235789\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas city manager\u2019s missteps could cost us with Mavs"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are many voices in Dallas now calling for the preservation of I.M. Pei\u2019s wedge-shaped City Hall building at 1500 Marilla St.<\/p>\n

We firmly believe that, if given a choice, a majority of Dallas residents would choose a multi-billion dollar reinvestment in downtown over a brutalist structure that, as architecture, is beautiful to some, ugly to others and divisive at best.<\/p>\n

It is still possible that a reinvestment will happen, one that is centered on a new arena for the Dallas Mavericks and that breathes life and opportunity into our city\u2019s core.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the outcome strikes us as increasingly remote, in large part because of the way City Manager Kimberly\u00a0Bizor Tolbert has handled <\/a>the opportunity. (Our mayor, as far as we can tell, has been all but absent as a public player in this debate.)<\/p>\n

Tolbert has done a good job as city manager overall. Those of us who follow city matters know she is fast to respond to urgent issues that represent threats or opportunities for the city. It was Tolbert who changed the failed approach of her predecessor when it came to policing downtown. Tolbert personally engaged to try to keep Neiman Marcus in downtown. Tolbert pushed for a budget that aggressively added funds for more police. We could go on.<\/p>\n

But the Mavs opportunity has exposed what we think is an error in her management. This was a case that needed to be handled as a public debate about the opportunity for downtown <\/a>from the very beginning.<\/p>\n

Instead, the public debate has revolved almost entirely around the physical condition of City Hall. If you\u2019ve spent any time in that building, you know it\u2019s a mess. But you have to be naive to believe that its maintenance is suddenly an urgent matter <\/a>that could cost Dallas hundreds of millions of dollars. The building needs help, but it\u2019s not going to fall down.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last year, when Tolbert raised with Mavs leadership the possibility of using the City Hall site for a new arena, she should have followed up with a briefing to the council in executive session about her thinking. She should have made the case that this would be better for Dallas in the long run because it would bring lasting investment to the city.<\/p>\n

Instead, we got the debate over the condition of City Hall, and some who want to preserve the building have treated the secrecy of the Mavs opportunity as a conspiracy. We don\u2019t see a conspiracy so much as an attempt to keep sensitive negotiations secret. Either way you see it, the business was done behind closed doors in ways that are unhelpful.<\/p>\n

From the beginning, we\u2019ve urged city officials to make this a public debate about the opportunity we stand to lose against the building we stand to keep.<\/p>\n

Good people can disagree about which is more important. We think it\u2019s the opportunity for Dallas. We need a vibrant downtown that anchors not just the city but the region. City Hall has never and will never be that.<\/p>\n

Tolbert has demonstrated she can lead on questions of this importance. She needs to lead now with what Dallas could gain or lose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are many voices in Dallas now calling for the preservation of I.M. Pei\u2019s wedge-shaped City Hall building…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,993,88840,87995,88000,88952],"class_list":{"0":"post-235789","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-dallas","9":"tag-dallas-headlines","10":"tag-dallas-news","11":"tag-downtown","12":"tag-tp-dallas-mavericks","13":"tag-tp-sports","14":"tag-tp-dallas-city-council","15":"tag-tp-dallas-city-hall"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}