What the Mavericks’ Valley View play means for the Dallas City Hall debate

For Dallas City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert, the Mavericks were never just a basketball team. 

They offered city leaders and business interests a chance to energize downtown while providing a path forward for City Hall, a building facing hundreds of millions of dollars in repair needs. 

Keeping the Mavericks in Dallas was always the primary objective.

The NBA team’s execution of purchase options at Valley View deprives downtown supporters of the marquee project many believed could help transform City Hall and revive the city’s core.

Dallas leaders now face a series of questions about City Hall, downtown and the city’s future. Here’s a look at the fallout.

The Mavericks’ decision doesn’t alter City Hall’s underlying problem: a 50-year-old building in need of extensive repairs and upgrades.
In a recent assessment report, consultants said the building is “increasingly constrained by aging infrastructure and deferred capital renewal,” increasing risks of unreliable operations and safety concerns. 

They estimate the city would need at least $329 million to do corrective repairs. That includes upgrading the distribution piping of the HVAC system and replacing decades-old electrical equipment. For supporters of a move, the appeal was straightforward: relocate city offices, redevelop the property and avoid investing hundreds of millions of dollars into a building many view as obsolete.

A revamped City Hall site would “help us breathe life into the long dormant southern side of downtown and to finally restitch downtown to southern Dallas,” Jennifer Scripps, president and CEO of Downtown Dallas Inc., said in February.

Without a Mavericks arena as the centerpiece, city leaders must still decide whether Dallas is better off spending hundreds of millions to modernize City Hall or moving elsewhere and pursuing a different idea for the property.

The outcome leaves Tolbert without the marquee redevelopment project many advocates believed could help build support for moving City Hall.

It marked one of her most closely watched initiatives, attracting backing from influential downtown business leaders and developers. But it also exposed divisions on the City Council over whether to relocate city offices or invest in repairing the building.

Some council members may still support relocating because of the building’s condition and high repair costs. Others may see less reason to move without the promise of an arena and entertainment district.

The arguments that fueled the push to relocate City Hall extend beyond the Mavericks.

“The fact is that Dallas City Hall isn’t in good shape,” Mayor Eric Johnson wrote in a March 15 newsletter to residents. “It doesn’t meet the needs of a modern big-city government — or, really, of any modern workplace. It also serves as an anchor of the city’s government district — an outdated concept that essentially condemns an entire area of the urban core to close up shop at 5 p.m.”

Others may view keeping the team anywhere within Dallas city limits as a win, especially given concerns that the Mavericks might have looked beyond Dallas altogether. 

But the Mavericks, in siding with Valley View over downtown, said Irving still is in play as a possible new home.

The Mavericks’ shift leaves Dallas searching for a new vision for its urban core.

Some of the city’s most notable real estate leaders and others who supported tearing down the landmark government building have said a basketball arena and entertainment district offered a fix to several problems.

“City Hall is dank, dark and demoralizing,” Shawn Todd, a developer who owns multiple properties downtown and has repurposed two I.M. Pei-designed buildings, previously told The Dallas Morning News.

“My opinions regarding Dallas City Hall have nothing to do with the Dallas Mavericks,” he said. “It is a functionally obsolete building plagued with multiple issues that occupies land, which is strategically positioned for a dynamic mix of uses. It’s not a place to accomplish where Dallas needs to be on multiple fronts.”

Coupled with the $3.7 billion convention center expansion, a new Mavericks arena could have supercharged investment in a sleeper segment of downtown, with new housing, restaurants, hotels and further development. 

The NBA-centric plan also could have been a key part of efforts to grow the city’s tax base while creating a corridor that connects downtown with the Cedars, Fair Park and Southern Dallas. 

If the city remains in the existing building, downtown office towers would lose a potential tenant at a time when major corporate occupants are preparing to leave.

AT&T, which occupies more office space than any other private entity in Dallas, announced plans in January to build a new global headquarters in Plano, ending its nearly two-decade run downtown.

The telecom giant’s lease at the 37-story Whitacre Tower runs through the end of 2031, but CEO John Stankey has said the company is expected to partially occupy the Plano campus in late 2028.

After acquiring Comerica Bank, Fifth Third announced plans to leave Comerica Bank Tower. The bank occupies more than 200,000 square feet inside of Dallas’ third-tallest skyscraper, but will empty out of the 60-story tower within the next couple of months.

The loss of two premier tenants would send downtown Dallas’ office vacancy rate to roughly 35%. That would be the highest vacancy rate within a central business district in the country as of today.

Those towers may sit hollowed out while Dallas searches for another project capable of changing perceptions of downtown and attracting new investment.