Austin Spends $120M for Public Safety Campus

Austin city leaders will pay to move into existing office space, instead of building new offices. The city will consolidate Austin’s fire, police and emergency medical services personnel at a new public safety campus in Southwest Austin. The offices are known as One and Two Barton Skyway, located at 1501 and 1601 S. MoPac.

City staff said buying and refurbishing the offices, built in 1999 and 2000, will be a far cheaper option than building a comparable public safety facility from scratch.

The four-story buildings will include 391,000 square feet of office space, parking garages and other features.

The acquisition, plus design and retrofitting work, will cost $120.5 million. It will be funded through certificates of obligation. The new headquarters will serve as an administrative facility and not a fire, police or EMS station. City staff says renovations would begin about six months after closing on the property, with a completion date to be set in the future.