In October 2025, the architecture community was surprised by an article in the Dallas Morning News that Dallas officials are considering demolishing I.M. Pei's iconic Brutalist Dallas City Hall. This follows a Feburary 2025 approval by the Dallas Landmark Commission, who voted to initiate historic designation.

 

A coalition of local and national organizations including the North Texas chapter of Docomomo, Docomomo US, AIA Dallas, Preservation Dallas, and Preservation Texas has formed to work on saving this bold Dallas icon. A petition for saving City Hall has over 4000 signatures so far. For more information on what's happening, visit the Save Dallas City Hall website.

 

Update: April 14, 2026

Submission by: David Preziosi, Docomomo US/North Texas

 

In November 2025, the Dallas City Council voted to explore options for relocating City Hall operations and the potential for redeveloping the City Hall site, home to I. M. Pei’s iconic Brutalist-style building. The striking seven-story design of concrete and glass, with its dramatic 34-degree sloped wall tilting out above the civic plaza, opened in 1978. The city claimed that addressing the deferred maintenance for the building would be too costly and that it would be more prudent to relocate to an existing office building to open up the City Hall site for redevelopment. That shocked many in Dallas and the design community, as that was the first time the City mentioned leaving. Sure, there have been lots of mentions over the years about the deferred maintenance issues, but never was an option presented to leave City Hall until now.

 

As part of the vote, they requested a report on the cost of repairing the city hall versus moving to another building downtown. They engaged the Economic Development Council (EDC) to bring a report to them in January of this year. The EDC hired AECOM to study the building and CBRE to explore relocation options. AECOM had roughly six weeks to prepare a report on the approximately 800,000 square foot building. They estimated it would cost $1.14 billion over the next 20 years to address deferred maintenance and to fully modernize and operate the building. That figure included the replacement of every single system in the building, whether needed or not, including a new boiler installed a few years ago, moving out for five years to repair the building, astronomical financing costs, and more. The options to move out came in much lower, but it was not an apples-to-apples comparison.

 

In March, the City Council called a special meeting to discuss the future of City Hall. Speakers packed the council chamber. Approximately 80 percent favored staying in City Hall and questioned the report’s validity and motives for leaving. After a nearly 16-hour meeting, the City Council voted 9 to 6 to direct CBRE to bring back two options for a new city hall location, asked staff to determine the most critical needs of the City Hall building to be addressed if they stay, how to fund both options, and the economic development potential of the site with redevelopment. That is to be done by May so that the City Council can vote on staying or leaving.

 

Many of the city’s big developers and Downtown Dallas Inc. stated that abandoning City Hall would allow redevelopment of the 15 acres it sits on, including its plaza and parking. They claim that this action is necessary to revitalize downtown, which currently faces high vacancy rates because companies are relocating north of the city center to recently built high-rise buildings. Also, part of this discussion is that the Dallas Mavericks have also announced that they want a new arena by the time their lease ends at their current arena in 2031. They have identified the Dallas City Hall site as one of two in Dallas for their new arena. The Mavericks CEO said they need fifty acres to build an arena and additional development, including offices, hotel, restaurants, a medical facility, and an entertainment venue. They would need the City Hall site to accomplish that in downtown Dallas. The Mavericks will decide by July 1 on the site for their new arena.

 

A coalition of organizations and individuals now exists to advocate for saving City Hall. The Docomomo US North Texas chapter is part of that, along with groups such as Preservation Dallas, AIA Dallas, The Ten Presidents (past presidents of AIA Dallas), and the Dallas Architecture Foundation. The coalition has challenged assumptions, met with the local newspaper editorial board to explain why saving city hall is the fiscally sound thing to do, started an online petition (over 7000 signatures to date), and developed a website (www.savedallascityhall.com) to post information and provide an easy way to contact city representatives. To save City Hall, which is the fiscally sound choice, the coalition has been consistently informing the public and rallied people to attend the special-called council meeting in March about City Hall’s future.

 

The consideration to leave City Hall is the biggest issue the City of Dallas has faced in decades and will affect the future of the city for decades to come. If the City Council votes to leave City Hall in May, that would set in motion the future demolition of one of the most iconic buildings in Dallas and one of the most significant Brutalist civic buildings nationally.

Update: November 20, 2025

Submission by: David Preziosi, Docomomo US/North Texas

Last week, the Dallas City Council voted to explore options for leaving its iconic Brutalist-style I.M. Pei-designed City Hall. Discussions of leaving City Hall began last month and came as a big surprise to the architecture and historic preservation community in Dallas, Texas, and the U.S. According to the city, the main impetus for considering leaving City Hall, which opened in 1978, is the cost of repairs needed because of deferred maintenance. In the past few weeks, estimates ballooned from 125mm to 600mm for repairs using past reports and unqualified staff estimates.

 

The building of Dallas City Hall was an extension of the planning efforts after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy to reshape Dallas as a forward and modern city. Over 10 years went into planning and designing the massive 800,000+ square foot building to meet the needs of the city well into the future. They sited the building on fourteen acres at the southern end of downtown. A four-acre plaza, designed at its front door, covered a 1,500-car parking garage. The plaza with a fountain, trees, sculptures, and lots of concrete has become a place for citizens to gather over the years and has been the site of numerous and varied events, along with a place for protests. 

 

In March of this year, the Dallas Landmark Commission voted to initiate the Landmark designation process for the building to recognize its historic and architectural importance to the city. Initiation of the process by the Landmark Commission protects the building for 2 years from alteration or demolition without its permission. The City Council will make the final decision on landmarking the building, and they could choose to deny the landmarking by the time it gets to them.

 

Many concerns of the public have gone unanswered by the City. Why is the process moving so fast and where is the public involvement in this process? The focus seems to be on maximum economic development of the site rather than keeping city hall. Where are the costs of relocating city hall? How have the estimates for repair increased so much without qualified professionals giving repair costs (local architects agree the severity of its condition and cost to repair is greatly overstated)? How is this effort related to a new sports arena in downtown, which developers call out City Hall as the perfect site for it? 

 

Timeline:

The Future of the Dallas City Hall remains uncertain as Dallas City Councilmembers discuss options for its future. A series of meetings were held in late October and early November:

 

October 21     

Dallas’ City Council’s Finance Committee discussed the physical condition of the 1978 building, focusing on needed repairs, some of which had previously been identified as problematic in the past.  Committee members discussed the possibility of exploring other options for the building, including vacating, and worse. This was the first meeting open to the public on this topic; however, no public input was allowed.

 

October 27    

Dallas’s City Council’s Finance and Economic Development committees held a joint meeting, which provided updates for cost ‘guestimates’ of repairs, and a discussion about other options for the building and its land. Again, no public input was allowed. 

 

November 3        

The Finance Committee meeting debated options, and reviewed a draft resolution for the City Manager to explore options for City Hall, including repair and relocating staff to other locations (existing downtown office building or new construction) – with costs and economic impact for all options. This draft resolution was sent to the Dallas City Council for action at their November 12 Council meeting. Once again, no public input was allowed.

 

November 3   

A public “listening session” was hosted by two council members in the evening to hear, for the first time, from the public on the issue. The standing room only crowd of over 250 packed the room. Nearly all the speakers were in support of ‘Saving Dallas City Hall’ and testimony had to be cut off due to time constraints for using the room.

 

November 12   

The Finance Committee’s resolution was discussed at the Dallas City Council meeting, with an additional requirement that the redevelopment of City Hall be done in a way that is supportive of the Convention Center Master Plan. Public comments were allowed, with 30 speakers (many who were Docomomo or AIA members), with nearly all opposing the resolution. After debate, the City Council passed the resolution 12- 3. The City Manager is now tasked with presenting findings to the City Council in February 2026 of what it would cost to relocate City Hall to another building and the cost to repair the existing building. In addition, the City Manager is also to look at what the economic development benefits are of redeveloping the City Hall property.