{"id":973471,"date":"2026-08-01T12:25:46","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T12:25:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/973471\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T12:25:46","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T12:25:46","slug":"wilonsky-anyone-want-a-free-111-year-old-dallas-landmark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/973471\/","title":{"rendered":"Wilonsky: Anyone want a free 111-year-old Dallas landmark?"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Ruiz thought the war was won 15 years ago\u00a0\u2014 June 8, 2011, to be exact. The day Tom Perkins, then Dallas\u2019 city attorney, signed the ordinance<\/a> that declared the East 9th Street campus of W.H. Adamson High School \u201can area of historical, cultural, and architectural importance and significance to the citizens of the city.\u201d The day the former Oak Cliff High School \u2014 Dallas\u2019 second-oldest high school, built in 1915 and designed by the man hailed a century ago as the \u201cmaster mind<\/a>\u201d who reshaped houses of education\u00a0\u2014 became an official Dallas landmark<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Never did Ruiz, the longtime president of the Adamson Alumni Association<\/a>,\u00a0imagine that in 2026, at the age of 77, he\u2019d still be worrying about the what-next for his alma mater, fenced off and boarded up today and still no closer to resurrection than in 2008 or when I found it battered and shattered one year ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know why someone hasn\u2019t recognized the potential of the building,\u201d Ruiz said Wednesday. He let out a long sigh. I said he sounded exhausted just talking about it. He laughed and said members of the alumni association, still connected to their old school by funding projects and scholarships for students in the gleaming, sprawling campus next door, keep asking what\u2019s to become of the 111-year-old Adamson. And he doesn\u2019t want to be the man who let them down.<\/p>\n

\"It's<\/a>\"DISD<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cAll these people in their 70s and 80s want something to happen before they leave this earth,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re doing the best we can. We have a foot in the door. We\u2019re doing the best we can. But it\u2019s becoming a tough go, and the outlook isn\u2019t all that great.\u201d<\/p>\n

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But Ruiz didn\u2019t know when I called Wednesday that the district is now seeking requests for proposals from anyone willing to take the building for free\u00a0\u2014 that\u2019s right, gratis, zippo, nada\u00a0\u2014 and turn it into housing or a health clinic or an arts center or \u2026 well, it doesn\u2019t really matter, does it? So long as the building\u2019s saved. And it doesn\u2019t cost DISD a penny.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/p>\n

This is what the old Adamson building looked like when I pulled up in August 2025.<\/p>\n

Robert Wilonsky\/Staff writer<\/p>\n

Preservation architect Marcel Quimby, who helped the alumni association add Adamson to Dallas\u2019 list of landmarks, directed my attention to the RFP on the district\u2019s website<\/a>. Quimby\u2019s been waiting on it for months.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re glad to see it finally hit the streets,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re all positive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The district says it\u2019s seeking \u201cqualified governmental entities, non-profit organizations and Low-to-Moderate income affordable Housing Developers\u201d to step up with plans to repurpose old Adamson. Yes, the same district that in October went to City Hall to convince preservationists that Adamson had become an \u201cimminent threat to public health or safety\u201d<\/a> that should be remedied with a wrecking ball, only to back off at the last minute.<\/p>\n

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DISD now says it wants \u201ca redevelopment partner capable of preserving the historic significance of the building.\u201d The school board will even \u201cconsider donating the former school building to the entity\/organization that presents a redevelopment proposal that best preserves the building\u2019s historical significance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Said Quimby of old Adamson, which the district once promised to turn into an arts magnet, \u201cthe building obviously needs to be protected and have a happy ending with something that\u2019s related to the community, and this is a good opportunity for this.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

And that would absolutely be the best-case scenario. For the district. For Oak Cliff. For the alumni association. And for a city whose most visionary mayor, J. Erik Jonsson, created Dallas\u2019 modern-day preservation movement by insisting that old buildings alongside the new offered us a \u201csense of history, identity, diversity and beauty.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"This<\/p>\n

This is what old W.H. Adamson High School looked like as recently as April 2015, when alumni gathered in front of their old school to celebrate its\u00a0centennial<\/p>\n

File photo\/The Dallas Morning News<\/p>\n

Except, here\u2019s the problem: The district just spent a few months trying to sell the building, and could find no takers. It also offered old Adamson to the alumni association, which couldn\u2019t take it either because it doesn\u2019t have the kind of money needed to salvage a building the district has long maintained would cost more than $100 million to rehab, in part because of a \u201cshallow foundation system\u201d\u00a0\u2014 per architecture firm Corgan\u00a0\u2014 that has long caused the building to shift and sink.<\/p>\n

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\u201cLeaving the building in its current condition is not in the best interest of DISD,\u201d reads a Corgan report that accompanies the RFP<\/a>. \u201cThe building will continue to move, and conditions will worsen with time, and possibly even a collapse of the entire southern end of the building.\u201d<\/p>\n

That report was from 2023. And not once before or after did the city ever crack down on the district, which had turned a blind eye to the vandalized, broken-windowed eyesore of its own making<\/a>, seemingly with the hopes that it would fall down while no one was looking. The city never so much as warned DISD about Adamson, even though it had clearly violated that 2008 ordinance, which says \u201cno person shall allow a structure in this district to deteriorate through demolition by neglect.\u201d<\/p>\n

The district\u2019s now offering Adamson \u201cas is, where is, with all latent and patent defects and faults.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In other words: Taker, beware.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The rendering of Adamson back when it was known as Oak Cliff High School<\/p>\n

From the archives\/The Dallas Morning News<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Adamson issue has been discussed for years, for decades,\u201d said Preservation Dallas\u2019 executive director, Sarah Crain. \u201cIt has been brought to DISD\u2019s attention repeatedly. I am so glad they\u2019re finally putting out the RFP. But we\u2019re also years late in the process, and only the community pays for it. I just hope the alumni association hasn\u2019t lost their optimism. I want them to maintain their hope because we\u2019re on the precipice of being able to find the next life for this important historic building.\u201d<\/p>\n

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I asked DISD trustee Ben Mackey, whose district includes Adamson, what happened if no one stepped up with a viable proposal by the Oct. 15 deadline. Simple, he said: The district will just extend the deadline. And if no one ever comes forward, well, it\u2019s hard to say.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The only thing certain is that the building will just continue to deteriorate. And maybe the district, which just convinced voters to approve a $6.2 billion bond package allowing for 26 new schools and renovations on every campus, will again try to get it demolished.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Or maybe, as Corgan warns, it just falls down.<\/p>\n

\"Sure.<\/p>\n

Sure. You can have Adamson, which today looks much better than it did just one year ago. But just\u00a0remember. Nothing’s “free.”<\/p>\n

Robert Wilonsky\/The Dallas Morning News<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t buy\u00a0\u2014 and wouldn\u2019t support the idea\u00a0\u2014 that it\u2019s all or nothing, that it\u2019s either restored or demolished,\u201d Mackey said. \u201cIf we can\u2019t find someone who wants to restore and utilize the building, the next action will be to see what we can do that honors the building, its history, its legacy. Can we make this a greenspace that keeps an element of the building, its facade, to carry on the legacy? That would all be in play. But it\u2019s not all or nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

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So how about a community center, maybe. Or apartments. Or an office complex for nonprofits. Or or or. And and and. What ya got? Give the district a shout. Lines are open.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Ruiz thought the war was won 15 years ago\u00a0\u2014 June 8, 2011, to be exact. The day…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":973472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,1596,358,337434,339148,290170,324880,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-973471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-america","tag-dallas","tag-texas","tag-tp-oak-cliff","tag-tp-affordable-housing","tag-tp-architecture","tag-tp-dallas-isd","tag-tx","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117020245949337435","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=973471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/973472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=973471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=973471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=973471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}