"I came to the city about two years ago, and one of the first things I was really surprised to find-- we don't have functioning water fountains, you couldn't drink out of the water fountains because they were concerned that the water wasn't of a good enough quality to drink," Macchi said.
The director said every week, someone gets stuck in the elevators at the two locations.
"It's not uncommon. Every week, someone gets trapped in the elevator in both of those buildings. (We had) to call folks to come and get them out a couple of weeks ago. Our city attorney actually had an incident where the door malfunctioned and almost caught his arm, his hand right in it," Macchi said.
He said the nearly 60-year-old buildings have electrical, mechanical, plumbing, and what they referred to as "life safety" problems.
"The department had done an assessment back in 2017, they'd identified in 2017, but there was almost $90 million of deferred maintenance, but critical deferred maintenance, that needed to be done in order to keep the facility operational," Macchi said.
"The other day, we lost A/C from the 16th floor to the 22nd floor for several hours. These are things that happen on a somewhat regular basis," Houston Police Executive Chief T.E. Hardin said.
Macchi said since then, the city has only invested about $10 million, and today he said the repairs needed at both 611 Walker and 1200 Travis are now estimated to cost $576,710,000.
"This is a big issue," said council member Abbie Kamin, adding that there are even issues at City Hall. "The paint on the roof, we've all seen it, is peeling off, and all the money that the city has rightfully so has been going out into the community, not city buildings, but our city buildings are what keep the city running."
Council members and Mayor Whitmire said city buildings are what keep the city running.
"Why should Houstonians be concerned? Because it impacts the quality of life of city services and it's been like this for years, but no one was allowed to discuss it," Mayor Whitmire said.
Macchi said recent flooding caused by a water line break even shut down one of the locations, sending city employees to work from home for the rest of the day.
Macchi said the time for change should be imminent.
"The question is, do we put this much money into these facilities to rehabilitate them, or do we look and see if there's something else that could be purchasing land, building a new building, using land that we already own, and then building a new building?" Macchi said.
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