The City of Fort Worth has completed the acquisition of its new city hall and plans to move in 2022. In December, the city council approved a plan to buy the former Pier 1 building.
The city closed on the sale last week, paying $69.5 million for the building and authorizing the use of about $30 million for renovation.
"This will be, for decades, a building for people to feel at home," Mayor Betsy Price said Tuesday.
The Pier 1 building has been mostly vacant since 2017 and is larger than the current city hall, with 160,000 additional square feet. Price says the move will give Fort Worth the ability to house all city departments in the same place.
"This is a place where residents can come to ask questions or pay their water bill, as simple as that, or strictly to participate in committees or come to council chambers and let us know what they're thinking," Price says.
City Manager David Cooke says Fort Worth had planned to spend $200 million building a new city hall on Lancaster.
"We're going to save roughly six years in planning and execution, and we're going to save roughly $100 million in acquiring city hall as opposed to building a new city hall," he says. "This is an incredible building that will be inviting and more accessible to the people of Fort Worth. This is their building."
Price, who is not seeking reelection in May, says the building will also draw more people and development to the area around Panther Island Pavilion.
"I think it'll really revitalize this area to have all of our employees here, you have residents coming in," she says. "That, in itself, will give us just a great anchor down to the river, to the trails and the paths. It should really revitalize this end between downtown and the West 7th Street area."
