Dallas Lists City Hall on Facebook Marketplace: “Brutalist Fixer-Upper, You Haul”
With no money to repair I.M. Pei's upside-down pyramid and no money for a realtor, the city has posted it for $1, OBO.
Dallas, TX – After a summer spent debating whether to repair, sell or quietly walk away from I.M. Pei’s upside-down concrete pyramid, the City of Dallas has taken the next logical step and listed City Hall on Facebook Marketplace.
“This has come up at a lot of meetings,” said Cody Pruitt, the city’s newly appointed Assistant Deputy Director of Real Estate Vibes. “It’s a masterpiece of American Brutalism. It’s also a building where the elevators have opinions. The consultants are doing great work finding us a new place. In the meantime, we figured Marketplace couldn’t hurt.”
Within an hour, the listing had drawn 214 messages. Pruitt said 211 of them read “Is this still available?” and were never followed up on. Two came from Frisco developers asking whether it “comes with the land or just the vibes.” The last was from a man in Deep Ellum offering a 2009 Nissan Altima and “a real good hookup for brisket.”
“Honestly, the Altima guy is our strongest lead,” Pruitt admitted.
Preservationists were furious. “You don’t sell the Mona Lisa on Marketplace,” said Margaret Ellison-Hunt of the Friends of Leaning Concrete. “You sell it on eBay, with photos, like adults.”
Staff defended the move, noting the city’s new $5.66 billion budget, passed after a 14-hour meeting, didn’t include money to fix the building. “We didn’t have the budget to repair it, and we didn’t have the budget for a realtor,” Pruitt said. “After that meeting, nobody here has the emotional budget for anything.”
At press time, the city had agreed to meet a buyer in a Walgreens parking lot, where the building would be handed over as-is, with the keys taped under the Henry Moore sculpture out front.
