With the continued growth of the city of McAllen and, with it, its resources, it might be time for McAllen City Hall to grow. At least, that’s what the city commissioners are currently pondering.
Last week, the McAllen City Commission agreed to set aside $21 million for a city hall expansion project, though they fell short of fully committing those funds to such a project.
But they have taken some steps toward embarking on an expansion.
In December, the commission awarded a $40,000 contract to Milnet Architectural Services to conduct a comprehensive feasibility study for the expansion project and they have also approved funding for the design.
“Right now, we’re still at the stage of whether it’s something we do want to do and it seems like we do, it’s necessary,” said McAllen Mayor Javier Villalobos. “We’re looking at studies to make sure that it’s something that could be beneficial and feasible and we should know probably within a month.”
Villalobos said staff at city hall is out of room and they would like to see whether some departments that have been moved out of the building over the years could be moved back in.
“Our city keeps growing and as we grow, I guess our city facilities also have to,” Villalobos said. “We have to grow as our population grows.”
Current expansion talks began about a year to a year and a half ago, according to City Manager Roel “Roy” Rodriguez, upon the suggestion of several commissioners and the mayor.
They discussed possibly building an entirely new city hall but eventually decided it would be more efficient and effective to expand the current one.
City hall, which sits on the corner of Houston Avenue and Main Street, first opened its doors to the public on Sept. 25, 1995.
At the time, the city’s population was on the verge of passing 100,000. As of July 2021, the city’s population was approximately 143,920, according to estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.
In 2013, the city had a study done of the city hall space when staff from the McAllen Development Services were temporarily moved into city hall when their building was being renovated.
The study showed that the city hall space at that time would hold them for five to 10 years.
“That’s now been 10 years and so part of the discussion that we have to have, and the study that we’re doing now, is how much of that operation over there would be more efficient by bringing it back to city hall,” he said of the development services staff.
The study will also examine how much they have outgrown the building with the people that remain.
“We have no more office space at this point,” he said. “Every room, every wall is basically taken and so we need to determine — when we do expand — what do we bring back and then how much do we build for growth.”
Another thing they need to look at is the capacity of the city commission chamber, which Rodriguez noted can get pretty full when they have high turnout from the public.
“In 10 or 15 years from now, that room that we have now would definitely be too small,” he said.
Rodriguez strongly emphasized that their thoughts on what the expansion would entail are still preliminary because they don’t have an exact figure on what construction would cost.
However, he said he would personally like to see the city commission chambers moved to the first floor instead of its current location on the third floor.
Relocating it would make it easier for the public to access it but it would also keep people from wandering around city hall at night when the city commissioners are in chambers.
They are also looking at adding to the north side of the existing building, where currently there is a parking lot, with that extension having a total of five floors.
“So we wouldn’t add any stories to the existing building but right behind it would be five stories going up,” Rodriguez said.
Those plans are contingent on the feasibility study which is still being worked on. Once that’s completed, they will likely move on to the design phase.
All of that, though, is dependent on whether the city commission even wants to move forward with the expansion project at all.
“All we did on that item last meeting was to move the money aside,” Rodriguez noted. “If the city commission, a year from now, decides ‘You know what, it’s too costly’ or ‘I don’t like it’ … then we don’t have to spend it.”
Those $21 million that were set aside from the project came from the fund balance of the city’s general fund which has $78.5 million for the current fiscal year. For comparison, the city had $54.3 million in last fiscal year’s general fund balance.
Rodriguez explained that he and the city are very conservative when it comes to preparing the budget. Coupled with last year’s record-breaking revenue in sales and property taxes, it led to a fund balance that was several million over the norm.
With the available cash, Rodriguez said there was no reason to borrow the funds and burden the taxpayers though, he acknowledged that when talks of expansion first began, he thought the city would have a bond election to ask the voters to borrow the money.
He just didn’t think their fund balance would grow as it did, he said, but it was good that it did because while experience tells him citizens are willing to bear the brunt of higher taxes for drainage, streets, and curb and gutter, a city hall is different.
“It’s a building that houses government employees and so they may be less inclined to vote for a bond election for a building like that,” Rodriguez said. “And so I think it’s just a great opportunity to be able to use available funds.”
