A long‑awaited city report estimates repairs to Dallas City Hall could cost as much as $1.1 billion over the next two decades and would require the building to be vacated for at least five years, officials said.
In more than 1,000 pages of reports released Friday evening, city officials detailed structural problems throughout the 47‑year‑old building, including water intrusion, localized concrete deterioration, and cracking and other failures where City Hall connects to its attached parking garage.
While “no evidence of widespread structural instability was observed at the time of the assessment, deficiencies were localized and need to be addressed,” the report said.
The report highlights hundreds of areas in the building that are not compliant with requirements under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Additionally, repairs to the building have been patchwork in nature, the report said, making it necessary to replace the HVAC system and the roof. Features in the building, along with the technology, are obsolete, it says.
The future of the iconic structure has been up for debate since November 2025, when some council members questioned whether it was worth spending the then-estimated hundreds of millions to make repairs to the aging building.
Other council members called the decision to abandon the building a rush to judgment.
In November, Mayor Eric Johnson told CBS News Texas he wanted to see all the facts before weighing in on what to do.
The building, designed by architect I.M. Pei, opened in 1978. It has been praised by preservationists as an irreplaceable example of modernist architecture.
The report will first be presented at the city council finance committee on Monday afternoon and to the full City Council on March 4.