The City of Dallas is weighing the future of its aging City Hall after officials collected 418 public submissions in response to an April request for feedback, and the ideas—from professional renderings by EDSA to ambitious entertainment districts tied to the Dallas Mavericks—are now posted for review as city leaders including District 4 Council member Maxie Johnson consider engineering and financial analyses.
The city made a public call in April asking residents and designers to weigh in on City Hall’s fate, and those 418 entries were posted to the city’s website on Thursday afternoon for officials and the public to examine. Submissions range from small programming suggestions to full redevelopment concepts, giving a broad picture of how people imagine the site could serve downtown Dallas in the years ahead. City staff will now sort through the proposals as part of a formal review process that city officials say will include technical evaluations.
One prominent entry came from EDSA, a landscape architecture and urban design firm, with vice president Jagger Javenes showing NBC 5 renderings and plans his team submitted as part of the process. “We’re trying to find different ways to make it a little bit more vibrant,” Javenes said. He added creative touches in his presentation, even suggesting showpiece features: “So, whether that’s a misting machine with a holographic projection of horses and mavericks on it, there’s a lot of different ways that we can really energize the space.”
EDSA’s concept is listed among more than 320 submissions that offered either commentary or concrete redevelopment plans for the site, illustrating how designers and residents approached the prompt with varying levels of detail. Some entries favor adaptive reuse and placemaking ideas that would keep the core building and bring civic life to the plaza, while others imagine more dramatic changes to the footprint and function of the property. The breadth of entries highlights competing priorities: heritage and civic identity on one hand, and commercial activity and entertainment draw on the other.
Javenes described a vision that blends preservation with new uses and an eye toward local sports culture, saying, “We wanted to see if we could not only preserve the city hall but also provide a landing place for the Dallas Mavericks if they decided to stay there [in Dallas],” Javenes said. He framed the idea in everyday terms, arguing the site should invite families and visitors to spend an entire day downtown: “You’re supposed to look at it and say I could see myself going down there for the day, bringing my family down, going to a game, going to a museum … making a full day out of it.”
Not every proposal seeks to renovate; a number call for demolishing the current City Hall and replacing it with new development. One high-profile submission floated a $2 billion sports arena and mixed-use entertainment district tied to the Dallas Mavericks as their lease at the American Airlines Center runs through 2031, presenting a big-picture civic gamble that would tie public land to private event revenue. Those kinds of ideas raise obvious questions about financing, traffic, and long-term public benefit, so the council is treating them as starting points for deeper study rather than instant plans.
District 4 City Council member Maxie Johnson said the volume of responses shows strong public interest in the decision and that officials are taking time to get the technical details right. “I’m glad that so many people are saying this is I want, because it lets you know that a lot of people are concerned,” Johnson said. “I’m waiting on the engineer experts to bring the numbers back to the council so we can make a decision on what we’re going to do,” he said, underlining that engineering and financial reports will be foundational to any next steps.
As the city staff and council members digest the proposals, Javenes said his team valued the chance to enter public dialogue about a prominent downtown parcel and to imagine new forms of civic life there. “You could tell when people get excited about what they’re doing,” Javenes said. “And I think our whole team felt that.” City officials have told stakeholders they expect to provide more detailed information about the review process in June, and residents can watch how the technical reviews and council discussions shape the options for this central piece of Dallas real estate.
