Dallas City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert has warned the City Council against accommodating Jefferson Street viaduct by raising the height of the convention center to avoid further setbacks. The Houston Street viaduct. Photo courtesy of Yfat Yossifor via KERA.
Dallas City Council will decide on Wednesday whether to keep the current Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center height in order to accommodate travel on the Jefferson Boulevard and Houston Street viaducts.
The city of Dallas has worked for months on a plan to change traffic patterns for the viaducts to better accommodate the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center which is undergoing major renovations.
Houston would be a pedestrian greenway. Jefferson, the only viaduct of the two for vehicular traffic, would have a ramp down to Hotel Street going around the Convention Center to Reunion Boulevard and then to Young Street.
The Jefferson viaduct was originally planned to go underneath the renovated convention center, but city staff were asked to lower costs as the price tag for the expansion reached $3.5 billion.
The building height was lowered by two stories to save $500 million. Now the convention center’s first floor will be above ground level, at the same height as the Jefferson viaduct. Because the roadway can no longer go under the building, it will have to be rerouted.
But the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee wants the council to keep the current height to accommodate travel on Jefferson and on Houston Street.
That was in response to Oak Cliff and southern sector residents, who voiced concerns about connectivity to downtown at the town hall and on social media.
Council Member Paula Blackmon told staff during a meeting that residents felt the proposal would disconnect them from the rest of the city and asked them to listen to their concerns.
“There is obvious real concern about this from people in the Southern part of our city,” Blackmon said. “It’s how they feel. They feel they’re going to be cut off.”
City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert told council members in a memo that redesigning the building over the viaducts would add labor, equipment, and time to the project. It could also set the project back by an additional $597 million.
The convention center was originally planned to be complete by 2029. Tolbert said this month that the project has been delayed until 2030, and design changes could delay it even more.
Wednesday’s meeting is at 9 a.m. The agenda item is number 90 and is listed for individual consideration.
Residents can register to speak online at the City Secretary’s Office webpage.
