"That would be Dallas, where leaders say the monumental I. M. Pei-designed City Hall is in such bad shape that the city might be better off tearing it down and relocating the government into vacant office buildings nearby. That could create an enormous plot for the Dallas Mavericks, whose casino-company owners, the Adelson-Dumont family, want to build what Mavs CEO Rick Welts calls a "full-blown entertainment district" around their new basketball arena."
"This half-baked vision may be the nation's worst downtown-revival strategy, and not only because it would destroy the city's one-of-a-kind Brutalist colossus. The imagined payoff-a brand-new, suburban-style entertainment district-is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes downtowns worthy of their designation in the first place. No doubt City Hall needs some work. Dallas began deliberations over the building's fate this past fall, but the discussion was complicated by staff's varying estimates of the deferred maintenance bill:"
American downtowns face lost identity and tax bases after the COVID-era remote-work shift. Dallas leaders consider demolishing the I. M. Pei-designed City Hall due to severe deferred maintenance and relocating government into nearby vacant offices. The Mavericks' owners envision an adjacent entertainment district and some owners push to legalize casino gambling, raising the prospect of a casino replacing City Hall. The proposed entertainment-district approach threatens a unique Brutalist landmark and rests on a misunderstanding of what makes downtowns valuable. Conflicting repair estimates and recent municipal building failures have heightened public suspicion about timing and motives.
Read at The Atlantic
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