I’ve been thinking about the move of city hall.
The old city hall has been torn down and city staff has moved into new offices. City functions are up and running. The public is being served.
Then why?
Why then are we remodeling two additional buildings for city use? According to the central appraisal district the one at 801 Texas is about 62,400 square feet while the one at 218 N Campbell (the Luther building) is about 64,000 square feet. Between the two of them the city has told us about $20.4 million in remodeling costs.
If city functions are running well why do we need these buildings? Are some departments crippled? Has the rush to get the ball park built caused some city functions to be sacrificed?
Both of these buildings are old, almost one hundred years old. Their construction style required giant concrete mushroom pillars in the middle of each supporting floor. These pillars occupy a lot of space and must be built around. In short, they restrict the floor designs that can be used. We seem to be paying over $200 per square foot to remodel the Luther building. Would a new building have been cheaper and better?
Why do we need these buildings? Can’t we leave the city departments where they are? Or are things not running well? Has the haste to tear down city hall caused service to the public to suffer?
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Not to worry. We can always tear them down and build something else. But we’ll do that after we’ve spent millions to renovate them. Or we can always flip them to a developer or REIT for a loss.
LikeLike