Houston officials approved the city’s move to sell two of its major properties downtown.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The big picture<\/p>\n
At its Oct. 7 meeting<\/a>, Houston City Council passed an ordinance allowing the city to work with commercial real estate company Cushman & Wakefield to sell 611 Walker St. and 1200 Travis<\/a> St., which house the Houston Public Works Department and the Houston Police Department, respectively.\u00a0<\/p>\n The decision came after years of concerns about the deteriorating facilities. Houston Public Works director Randy Macchi has spoken in previous meetings about the conditions of 611 Walker and 1200 Travis, noting that both buildings, built in 1966, have weak generators and outdated electrical systems. In July 2025, Macchi said that the HPW building had an 18% remaining service life and the HPD building was at 15% if the city does not make improvements.\u00a0<\/p>\n The local impact<\/p>\n Council member Edward Pollard said he wanted to ensure that the option to sell would be a long-term benefit to the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe understand that the conditions of those buildings are well under par from where they need to be,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I wanted to ensure that we look at a real analysis between the difference of just selling those properties or maybe doing a long-term ground lease.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Pollard asked if leasing the properties for 75 or 99 years would be possible so that the city could still own the land.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAs some of the most valuable pieces of property in the city, I do think that those discussions should be had,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, Mayor John Whitmire said the opportunity to receive revenue from the facilities would be beneficial, especially if applied toward a recent purchase of 1600 Smith St., which will house HPW and possibly HPD.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cRight now we don\u2019t have the money to repair [the two facilities],\u201d Whitmire said. \u201cWe\u2019re actually going to save millions with this decision.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The need<\/p>\n Macchi said 4,400 employees will eventually move to 1600 Smith St.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe got 1600 Smith for a steal of a deal at $55 million,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a hallmark real estate transaction for the city.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n However, the new facility still requires repairs. Macchi said the buildout of the space will cost the city around $5 million per floor, and the building has 53 floors. He estimated it would cost around $300 million for the project. <\/p>\n On the other hand, it would cost nearly $500 million to repair 611 Walker and another $500 million for 1200 Travis\u2014bringing the total repair costs for both properties to nearly $1 billion, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Looking ahead<\/p>\n Macchi added that developers have already expressed interest in 611 Walker because of its desirable location, access to the freeway and skyline view.\u00a0<\/p>\n The city has not yet listed a sale price for either location. Council will have final approval of any sale agreements for the properties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Houston officials approved the city’s move to sell two of its major properties downtown.\u00a0 The big picture At…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[157482,157481,45664,56,4626,58,57,2543,19293,3743,44072],"class_list":["post-460511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-1200-travis","tag-611-walker","tag-cushman-wakefield","tag-houston","tag-houston-city-council","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-houston-police-department","tag-houston-public-works","tag-john-whitmire","tag-randy-macchi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460511","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=460511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}