A frozen pipe burst last week, flooding parts of the newly renovated Hall of State at Dallas’ Fair Park and causing millions of dollars in estimated damage, authorities say.
The city is still gathering cost estimates and evaluating procurement and repair options for several Fair Park facilities, including the Cotton Bowl stadium and Tower Building, that were damaged when pipes broke, said Stefan Kesler, city senior architect.
Veletta Forsythe Lill, Dallas Historical Society board chair, said Tuesday that the Hall of State damage estimate was more than $3 million. The Cotton Bowl sustained around $2 million in damage.
The Hall of State, built in the 1930s, commemorates the history of Texas and is renowned for its architecture. It was originally the centerpiece of the 1936 Texas Centennial celebration. The building is owned by the city. Fair Park, which opened in 1886, covers 277 acres in South Dallas and is a National Historic Landmark. Several of the structures, including the Cotton Bowl and the Centennial Building, were built between 1900 and 1930.
A $14.4 million restoration of the 85-year-old Hall of State was completed in December. City voters in 2017 approved the bond sale to finance the renovation. For now, the building remains closed.
Water mains and pipes burst throughout the city during the deep freeze, snowstorms and prolonged power outages last week.
Dallas officials said Monday that they had received more than 4,000 water-related calls since snow began falling Feb. 14. Catherine Cuellar, a city spokeswoman, said 680 of the calls were solely about pipe breaks. Dallas confirmed 307 water main breaks and leaks as well as 147 repairs since last week. It’s likely that many more were not reported to the city.
Kesler, the city architect, said he toured the Hall of State about five hours after the flooding was reported around 4:30 a.m. Feb. 17. The low in Dallas-Fort Worth area that day was 22 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. It had been18 the day before.
A broken sprinkler pipe in that building’s attic caused around 4 feet of water to pool in the sub-basement, Kesler said. Five inches of water collected in the basement, destroying parts of the ceiling, carpet, walls and seats in the auditorium, he said.
Wood-paneled walls, display cases and artwork in the East Texas room were among the areas affected on the first floor. There also was damage in the Hall of Heroes, Kesler said.
“Water was being flushed out the front door by the time I got there — like a river,” Kesler said.
Karl Chiao, Dallas Historical Society executive director, said many of the exhibit pieces, artifacts and documents in the building were spared.
At least a dozen water pipes burst in the nearby Cotton Bowl, and the Tower Building experienced flooding from at least one ruptured pipe, Kesler said.
Julian Bowman, a spokesman for Spectra, which manages Fair Park, confirmed that there were several pipe breaks in the stadium as well as water damage in the Hall of State and the Tower Building. He declined to comment on specific damage Tuesday, saying it was still being assessed. Bowman said several other Fair Park facilities also had water damage from broken pipes, though he declined to name them, also because damage assessments were still underway.
“It’s a large campus with a lot of buildings to assess, so it’s going to take time,” Bowman said.
The annual State Fair Classic football game between Prairie View A&M and Grambling State has been postponed from Saturday to March 13 and moved to Globe Life Park in Arlington because of the pipe breaks in the Cotton Bowl, he said.
Staff writer Michael Granberry contributed to this report.
