Last Thursday, Austin City Council approved a $120 million investment to acquire and renovate a nearly 14-acre site in South Austin that will become the new home of the city’s public safety departments.
The site, which sits at the corner of the South MoPac Expressway and Barton Skyway, includes two four-story office buildings and a pair of large parking garages. Those buildings will now, following a renovation, become the home of the Austin Police Department, the Austin Fire Department, and the city’s Emergency Medical Services. The land and buildings cost $107.6 million, with the city tacking $13 million on for the renovation process.
Kimberly Olivares, the city’s deputy chief financial officer, said at a Public Safety Committee hearing earlier in October that the push to establish new headquarters for the public safety divisions was years in the making. The current homes of APD, AFD, and EMS are more than a half-century old and in need of significant upgrades; Olivares said the current APD headquarters in Downtown Austin in particular is in a state of disrepair and is costly for the city to maintain.
The city several years ago considered moving its police headquarters to its Rutherford Lane campus in Northeast Austin, but that plan was shelved after the estimated redevelopment cost soared as high as $300 million. The city also looked at the possibility of building a new headquarters but estimated such a project would also cost significantly more than the $120 million required to buy and renovate the South Austin building.
“It was a stinky, inside job.” – Save Our Springs’ Bill Bunch
Nevertheless, the purchase of the site has not been without controversy. The environmental nonprofit Save Our Springs Alliance raised concerns throughout the process about the site’s proximity to Barton Springs and the Edwards Aquifer, while Doug Greco, a candidate for mayor, highlighted that the realty trust that currently owns the site has made a contribution to a political action committee supporting Mayor Kirk Watson’s reelection bid. Watson said he wasn’t aware of the contribution.
Bobby Levinski, staff attorney for the environmental group Save Our Springs Alliance, testified against the purchase at the meeting on Thursday night, and the group’s Executive Director Bill Bunch pulled no punches in decrying the result of the vote – calling the purchase one of the worst things Watson and the current Council have done.
“It was a stinky, inside job, hatched in secret, with no competitive bidding at a time when we have over 25% office vacancy in Austin,” Bunch wrote of the purchase in a message to the Chronicle. “It’s a replay of the past, when insiders offloaded office buildings on the city early in an economic bust before appraisals reflected the full degree of the price collapse in office buildings.”
Bunch also alleged that the city failed to take commute times into account when considering where to place the new headquarters, arguing the location in South Austin is “convenient for a few top police brass but will create a nightmare commute for the vast majority of the police, fire, and EMS employees expected to office there.”
But those concerns failed to sway Council members on an evening when much of their and the public’s attention was focused on the vote to approve a new police contract. The resolution to purchase the building was approved alongside an amendment from Council Member Alison Alter calling for the installation of solar panels and other sustainable technology throughout the campus. The city will now enter a design process as it prepares to renovate the building, move its existing tenants out, and move its departments in.
This article appears in November 1 • 2024.