Aim is to update a six-decade-old building near downtown square
By Justin Sayers – Senior Staff Writer, Austin Business Journal
Oct 30, 2025
The Texas Municipal League organization is moving its headquarters to Georgetown.
Georgetown Mayor Joshua Schroeder announced on social media Oct. 30 that TML entities are “going to be investing millions of dollars” on rehabilitating the four-story, 64,000-square-foot Wesleyan Building at 205 E. University Ave. just east of the city’s downtown square.
He added that Georgetown “may also be partnering with them on another parking garage downtown with some event space in the downtown area.”
Georgetown and TML officials said later in the day that the Texas Municipal League Intergovernmental Risk Pool will acquire the building and use it as the new home of its Texas Municipal Center after completing a full renovation and revitalization of the site.
The entities said they’re working through the development process and engaging with nearby residents, with the next step being a zoning update. That will be followed by design and construction, with completion and move in scheduled for 2029.
“TML Risk Pool has been a trusted resource for communities throughout Texas for the past five decades,” said Bert Lumbreras, chair of the TML Risk Pool board, in a statement. “The TML Risk Pool Board of Trustees’ decision to house our Texas Municipal Center in a city with the long and deep history of Georgetown was based on a commitment to continuing our critical work in serving city’s risk needs over the next five decades and being an employer of choice to ensure we’re providing excellent service to our member cities.”
Schroeder added in a statement that the city looks forward “to also continuing discussions with the risk pool on a partnership to build the next parking garage in downtown Georgetown and meeting space to serve the needs of the TML and our local community.”
The announcement comes a few weeks after TML acknowledged it was considering the building, as well as three other unidentified sites in the Austin area, for its new headquarters, where TML entities could house their 250 employees.
The TML entities, which consist of the Texas Municipal League and the Texas Municipal League Intergovernmental Risk Pool, are currently based at 1821 Rutherford Lane in Austin.
That location is owned by the TMLIRP, a partnership among local municipalities that provides risk financing and loss prevention services and dates back to 1974. TML is a separate nonprofit lobbying group that leases space at the site and provides training, workshops, resources and publications, and also lobbies state and federal governments on behalf of more than 1,110 member cities.
The decision to move was recommended by a committee composed of representatives from both the TML and TMLIRP boards that reviewed long-term facility needs. It found that the current Texas Municipal Center on Rutherford Lane — home to the organizations since the 1990s — no longer fits the way the organizations work, officials said.
That’s because employees mostly work remotely, and the building has more seats than staff, outdated technology and too many empty offices. The aim is to build an HQ with flexible space, wellness-focused design, sustainability and technology-forward meeting areas that will be used for board business and more.
The TML entities said they were looking for a roughly 85,000-square-foot campus that can support about 200 employees and host conferences of up to 200 participants. They were aiming to identify a preferred site by early November.
The existing Austin property remains in full operation, and no decisions have been announced regarding its future.
The owner of the six-decade-old Georgetown building — also known as The Georgetonian — has been considering whether to remodel it for offices or turn it into condominiums instead, according to Lee McIntosh, managing partner at McIntosh Holdings LLC, which has owned the building since 2007.
The Wesleyan building was built in the 1960s by a division of the Methodist Church, in conjunction with The Williamson County Sun, the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and the citizens of Georgetown, as the city’s first independent living facility. Before that it served as a city park. It has recently been serving as offices for various companies.
“No matter what, that building is scheduled for a full makeover, whether it’s an office building or otherwise,” McIntosh said earlier this month. “Either way, it will be good for the city, whether it’s a condo project or continued office use.”
Georgetown officials said financial incentives aren’t being provided for the headquarters project. Still, they said the entities are discussing a potential partnership to share costs of a new public parking garage and meeting space to be located at a city parking lot between Ninth and 10th streets, and Main and Church streets. It would be the city’s second parking garage, and would include the first phase of the Ninth Street Art Walk, priority projects in the city’s downtown master plan.
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