8 March 13-19, 2025 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Maceo Smith Federal Building, the Santa Fe Federal Building and the Terminal Annex Federal Building. While the properties are not yet on the market, a spokesperson for the General Services Administration told The New York Times the agency will be con- sidering and evaluating all serious offers made on the properties listed. A. Maceo Smith Federal Building Located at 525 S Griffin St., the A. Maceo Smith Federal Building was named for a leading civil rights leader and the former owner and publisher of The Dallas Express. (While the Black newspaper once pub- lished in defiance of the Ku Klux Klan, it now operates under the watchful eye of ho- telier and Republican megadonor Monty Bennett.) Dallas-area offices for several federal agencies are located in the building. The Northern District of Texas’ Public Defend- er’s office is on the building’s sixth floor, and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Region 4 Employment and Training Administration office is located on floor three. (The Em- ployment and Training Administration has offices in five other cities across the U.S.) The Dallas-Fort Worth Federal Execu- tive Board, one of 10 executive boards started by President John F. Kennedy to help facilitate interagency coordination, ap- pears to office on the building’s eighth floor. Santa Fe Federal Building A recognizable art deco structure that shares a wall with the Earle Cabell Court- house, the Santa Fe Federal Building sits at 1114 Commerce St. and once served as a hub for shipping out North Texas soldiers serv- ing in World War II. The building was designated a historic Dallas Landmark in 1989 and is on the Na- tional Register of Historic Places. Homeland Security’s Federal Protective Service, which provides security for federal courthouses and buildings, is listed as occupying the building’s first floor today. Terminal Annex Federal Building Constructed in 1937 at 207 S Houston St., even the General Services Administration recognizes the history behind the Terminal Annex Federal Building. The white-stone structure was built on land once owned by John Neely Bryan, Dallas’ founder, the ad- ministration says, and is a part of the Dealey Plaza Historic District. Inside the national historic landmark are two murals commissioned as part of the New Deal Art Program. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportu- nity Commission’s Dallas office is listed as being on the building’s third floor. Dallas’ U.S. Military Entrance Processing Com- mand is the building’s fourth floor tenant. A daycare is also located within the build- ing. Other North Texas Properties The Center Phase 5 building in Farmers Branch was also listed as sellable. Texas Public Radio reported the property re- cently received a $500,000 tune-up. Down- town Fort Worth’s Fritz Lanham Building also made DOGE’s list, to the surprise of the federal public defenders who occupy the property. And though this isn’t a North Texas fac- toid, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that the George Thomas Mickey Leland building in Houston was also included in Trump’s audit of unnecessary buildings. Sen. Ted Cruz’s home-base office calls the Leland property home. ▼ CRIMINAL JUSTICE CAGED HEAT TEXAS PRISONS ARE FATALLY HOT, A LAWSUIT AND A LAWMAKER ARE CHANGING THAT. BY ALYSSA FIELDS I n Greek mythology, to get to hell one must be guided down the River Styx, pay a fee via copper coin, get past a vi- cious three-headed dog and finally enter the gates of the underworld. In Texas, one can experience a similar heat by simply be- ing convicted of a state felony. Texas is one of 13 states that does not re- quire air conditioning in its state prisons, but a new bill that would enforce humane treat- ment for the incarcerated has been filed for this legislative session. House Bill 2997, filed by Rep. John Bryant, a Democrat from Dallas County, would require Texas to keep prisons between 65 and 85 degrees. A similar bill failed to pass the Senate last session, with critics claiming that installing HVAC systems would be too costly. The pre- vious bill asked the state for half a billion dollars to install and repair air conditioning units within prisons. Two-thirds of state prisons do not have air conditioning, and the temperatures within those prisons can eas- ily exceed 100 degrees. A 2022 study from Texas A&M Univer- sity found that one had topped out at 149 degrees. When the heat index is above 125 degrees, there is an extreme risk of heat stroke. “We have the resources. We just seem to not have the compassion to do it,” a for- mer state representative, Carl Sherman from DeSoto, said during a press confer- ence after last year’s bill failed at the Sen- ate. The bill comes as a lawsuit against the Texas Department of Criminal Justice moves through the legal system. The law- suit was originally filed by Texas inmate Bernie Tiede. His criminal case has caught media attention and was even the inspira- tion for an eponymous film directed by Austin filmmaker, Richard Linklater. Tiede, convicted of murder in 1999, has been considered a model prisoner and now stands at the forefront of this branch of criminal justice reform. Now he has been joined by a group of criminal justice activist organizations that say the lack of proper temperature regulation creates in- humane conditions. “If cooking someone to death does not amount to cruel and unusual punishment, then nothing does,” the complaint said. Tiede was released and resentenced in 2016, and in 2023 he suffered a health event similar to a stroke. Tiede has diabe- tes, hypertension and other health issues that are exacerbated by heat. He has been serving his sentence at Huntsville Unit, the oldest prison in Texas. Constructed 176 years ago, it is made mostly of red brick, and even though it is air-con- ditioned, tempera- tures still rise high. A U.S. District Court judge has yet to rule on Tiede’s lawsuit. A stroke is far from the worst health re- sult to boil out of Texas prisons when ex- treme heat is involved. Brown University es- timated that 14 prisoners die each year from heat-related deaths in the state’s penitentia- ries. The Texas Tribune reported that nine prisoners died in a disastrous heat wave in 2023. Many of the prisoners who died are fairly young, and their cause of death is often recorded as cardiac arrest, according to the Tribune. Prison conditions don’t just affect the in- carcerated, the guards and administrators working the prisons are also subject to the same conditions. “[Guards are] in the same conditions for maybe 16 hours that someone who’s incar- cerated is in. It’s not fair for either one, by the way,” Andy Potter, founder of One Voice United, an advocacy group for correctional officers, said to the Observer. Aside from the death and debilitation that comes from prolonged exposure to high temperatures, an increase in heat has been linked to interpersonal violence, fur- ther perpetuating the tensions that al- ready exist within prisons. The bill from Bryant is modeled after an existing rule within the Texas Administra- tion Code that requires county jails to keep their facilities between 65 and 85 degrees. The law has stood since 1994. A night’s rest on the metal cot of the drunk tank is hospi- table compared to the life-threatening con- ditions of a summer weekend spent in solitary. “I think we should demolish all the older prisons,” Potter said. “I think you should build new prisons with some things in mind, that normalcy, that creating a condition where someone can feel safe, where you’re not sticking eight people into a cubicle that was built for maybe two, where people can feel like they have the space and room to feel safe and be rehabilitated and go to school, have their vocational training, have the things that they need.” ▼ CITY HALL LIGHTS, CAMERA, CONVENTION CENTER ACTION! DALLAS TO HOST WORLD CUP INTERNATIONAL BROADCAST CENTER.BY EMMA RUBY M ore than 2,000 broadcast journal- ists from around the world will de- scend upon Dallas at the start of next year to join the FIFA World Cup’s In- ternational Broadcast Center, which is set to be held at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Con- vention Center. Dallas will serve as the “nerve center” for World Cup-related broadcasting from Janu- ary 2026 through July 2026, FIFA Chief Business and Strategy Officer Amy Hopfin- ger announced on March 5 in the City Hall flag room. FIFA’s host broadcaster, media partners as well as the FIFA Content Pro- duction Department and Football Technol- ogy and Innovation Department will also headquarter out of the downtown conven- tion center. Dallas Mayor Eric “Sports City” John- son said the deal has been “over a year in the making.” The Dallas City Council ap- proved a $15 million contract for the IBC last December, when a press conference to announce the “milestone” was originally scheduled. The official announcement was later delayed so the city could “ex- plore additional potential opportunities tied to FIFA’s World Cup initiatives for 2026.” What those additional potential opportu- nities were or are isn’t clear. “The Kay Bailey Convention Center is going to serve as the nucleus of the media operations and showcase Dallas’ vibrant cul- ture and our renowned hospitality to liter- ally millions of viewers around the globe,” Johnson said. “We are more than ready to deliver a world-class experience.” Johnson was downright giddy during last week’s press conference, reiterating his ad- ministration’s dedication to recruiting and Unfair Park from p6 Adobe Stock Texas is one of the last states that does not require state prisons to monitor the temperature. A new bill aims to change that. “WE HAVE THE RESOURCES. WE JUST SEEM TO NOT HAVE THE COMPASSION TO DO IT.” –CARL SHERMAN
