HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — Houston City Council voted this week to allow real estate firm Cushman and Wakefield to list two city-owned buildings for sale as part of a plan to consolidate the police and public works departments into a single location.<\/p>\n
The two buildings up for sale are the police headquarters on Travis and the public works building on Walker.<\/p>\n
City officials described them as “terrible” this week and have previously said they contain “life-threatening conditions.”<\/p>\n
ABC13 has reported on well-documented problems with both buildings over the past year.<\/p>\n
Photos show water damage, officials have described broken elevators, and the police headquarters evidence room suffered from a rat infestation last year.<\/p>\n
“We’ve got 400,000 pounds of marijuana, and the rats are the only ones enjoying it,” Mayor John Whitmire said in January 2025.<\/p>\n
In August, city council approved buying the old Continental Airlines Building on Smith Street for $55 million to house police, public works, and other departments.<\/p>\n
Public Works Director Randy Macchi said some employees should be in that building by this time next year.<\/p>\n
But getting it ready for those employees won’t be cheap, Macchi said.<\/p>\n
“The build-out is going to be expensive,” Macchi said this week. “Current estimates right now are about $5.5 million per floor on that buildout.”<\/p>\n
That works out to nearly $281 million for a building that contains 51 floors.<\/p>\n
Macchi said the sale of the buildings on Travis and Walker will help offset that cost.<\/p>\n
The city plans to sell both buildings as-is.<\/p>\n
“This is a big boon to the city from a financial standpoint,” Macchi said.<\/p>\n
Quenton Rockwell, a commercial real estate expert and board member of the Houston Association of Realtors, said the buildings may take time to sell.<\/p>\n
“I think they’ll sit for a little bit until the right investor comes along to jump on it,” Rockwell said.<\/p>\n
He said it could take months or longer for the buildings to sell, but he believes they ultimately will.<\/p>\n
“I think they’ll be bought up and turned into some sort of residential or a resi-mercial mix,” he said.<\/p>\n
Rockwell estimated each building would sell for between $100 million and $200 million, or possibly less if the same buyer buys both properties.<\/p>\n
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