Will Toilet Failure Be Watershed Moment for City Hall Maintenance?
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The controversy over how well Dallas officials manage city-owned property hit a watershed moment this week when three floors at City Hall experienced flooding due to a toilet flush valve failure on the sixth floor.
Affected parts of the building included the city council chambers, council members’ offices, the city manager’s office, and offices associated with City Hall’s communications operations and the Department of Information & Technology Services. Standing water was observed on the third, fourth, and fifth floors, and there was a ceiling failure in a third-floor hallway.
City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert briefed officials on Monday, telling them that remediation would take 3-5 days. Some meetings were relocated to different rooms or were held remotely, but council members were back in chambers on Wednesday.
Maintenance Funding Is Well Below Where It Should Be
The timing of the toilet incident was uncanny considering council members grilled staff just the week before over how much the city was spending on maintenance for the buildings it owns and manages.
John Johnson, director of the Facilities & Real Estate Management Department, told council members on May 21 that maintenance on the 500-plus properties the city manages requires an additional $15 million annually to meet the industry standard for a large inventory of facilities, which calls for dedicating 2-4% of total replacement value for repairs each year.
He referred to some known unfunded repairs that need to be done. According to his department’s presentation to council members, City Hall needs work done related to garage water infiltration, seventh-floor cafeteria kitchen rehabilitation, freight elevator modernization, and ADA upgrades to some public areas.
The timing couldn’t be worse as officials plan for next year’s budget. They’re already staring at a $7 million shortfall.
“I don’t think any of us are going to support a tax increase,” Council Member Chad West (District 1) said last Wednesday. “I know our residents don’t support a tax increase to pay for this. … Where’s the money going to come from?”
City CFO Jack Ireland said there’s not a dedicated source of funds for major facility maintenance outside of the sale of assets due to a resolution adopted by council in 1977.
“So that has been our source of funds, and it’s not enough,” he said. “We understand that, so it’s just going to come down to us making it a priority and making decisions and including it in the budget.”
On Tuesday at a meeting of the Government Performance & Financial Management Committee, staff recommended that a couple of city-owned properties be deemed as surplus so they can be used to test the real estate market.
It’s worth noting, however, that staff’s recommendation was already in the works (part of a collaboration with the real estate firm CBRE) before the sixth-floor toilet failed.
Council Previously Flushed City Hall Funding Opportunity
No doubt council members might also be reflecting on their decision to leave out infrastructure updates at City Hall from last year’s bond election. Only Council Member Adam Bazaldua (District 7) supported putting the matter before voters.
In an op-ed published by The Dallas Morning News in February 2024, Bazaldua lamented that no bond dollars would be allocated to “necessary infrastructure for the critical workspace of front-line staff who interface with more than one million residents daily both in and outside of 1500 Marilla.”
He pointed to various infrastructure issues that need addressing, noting that the city can never seem to find the money to counter the “years of neglect” the building experienced since it first opened nearly 50 years ago.
In August 2024, Council Member Gay Donnell Willis (District 13) got stuck between floors in an elevator. She quipped on social media about how she might take a harder look at the City Hall maintenance budget. It’s unclear whether she was using the freight elevator referenced by Johnson in his presentation.
In a statement to CandysDirt.com, Bazaldua said, “It’s unfortunate that addressing our city’s critical facilities, like City Hall, wasn’t prioritized during the recent bond process. As I’ve said before, when we fail to invest in maintaining and modernizing these essential public assets, we’ll continue to watch them deteriorate right in front of our eyes. The flooding is just the latest example of what happens when we delay action on infrastructure that serves our residents every single day.”
City’s Real Estate Track Record Has Been Rough
The flooding incident is another black eye for a city that has struggled to get a handle on the numerous assets in its care but is working to reform its approach to property management and real estate deals. Last month, Tolbert laid out a plan to revamp city processes to better equip staff to manage the city’s real estate portfolio.
Officials have previously been accused of allowing certain city-owned properties to fall into states of disrepair. The most notorious example was the old Family Gateway building at 711 S. St. Paul St., which was taken over by squatters last year. Council members subsequently voted to auction off the property.
Similarly, multiple buildings at Fair Park have been suffering from inadequate maintenance, with stakeholders pointing fingers at the site’s private operators, who the Dallas City Council reportedly selected because they submitted the most competitive bid, according to The Dallas Morning News.
According to staff, the Facilities & Real Estate Management Department is responsible for more than 500 buildings totaling roughly 9.6 million square feet valued at around $1.5 billion. The average building age is 47 years old.
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The people running the city of Dallas in all areas are absolutely incompetent! What an embarrassment!
City Hall has all sorts of problems. It isn’t just the freight elevator, the regular elevators go out of service all the time. You got this constant leaks in the garage that have gone on for years — yes, years. The building is always either too hot or too cold, and god knows how much money is being wasted on heating or cooling (council chambers could serve as a morgue) instead of just keeping it at a normal temperature. Don’t get me started on the bathroom situation either, bet if council had to work 40+ hours a week the way we do they’d find some mulah to fix this lol!!
I have always thought that monumental design by I.M. Pei should be saved by having it incorporated in the development of another resort hotel for the Convention Center. In turn, city hall needs to move south into an inexpensive building in the Cedars.
Fiat (make it so)!