Small Texas city swaps grocery store City Hall for $53M upgrade

A small city northeast of Austin is preparing to centralize its government and public safety operations through construction of a new city hall and Justice Center, a project local officials said is critical to meet long-term infrastructure needs.

City leaders in Taylor advanced plans to allocate roughly $53 million to the 56,000-square-foot complex, which will consolidate city hall offices, the Taylor Police Department and the municipal court into a single facility located at 150 Washburn St., near downtown.

The three-story building will replace Taylor’s aging city hall building, which currently sits at 400 Porter Street — the site of a former Safeway grocery store.

City communications manager Jerrod Kingery said that some construction efforts are already underway, including relocation of a sewer line, as reported by Chron.com.

A recent filing with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation shows construction is expected to be completed by September 2027, but a presentation about the project shows the city anticipates it will take nearly 30 months to complete. The filing estimates the cost of the project to be around $38.5 million, but the city's website estimates the cost to be closer to $53 million.