Telecommunications giant AT&T sent ripples through North Texas Monday morning when news broke about its decision to construct a new global headquarters in Plano, sparking questions about the future in downtown Dallas.
“This location will provide us the necessary room to cost effectively consolidate all Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex administrative space, including our three largest locations in Central Dallas, Plano and Irving, and create a corporate campus designed for collaboration, innovation and engagement,” AT&T CEO John Stankey said in a statement shared with The News.
AT&T has been based in Dallas since 2008, when it left San Antonio for North Texas. The planned move to Plano marks a big loss for the city. AT&T is one of the world’s largest telecommunications companies and one of the city’s largest employers.
Here is what we know about this developing story:
AT&T’s new Plano site
The company’s new global headquarters is set to be located at 5400 Legacy Dr. in Plano, Texas. The site will span 54 acres, Stankey told employees in an email Monday.
D-FW Real Estate News
Dallas investment Firm NexPoint owned 215 acres of land where AT&T plans to build the new headquarters. The site also includes the former base for Electronic Data Systems headquarters, H. Ross Perot Sr.’s information technology company, which was founded in the 1960s.
NexPoint declined to comment when reached by a reporter from The News.
When will the Plano HQ open?
An exact opening date of the HQ is still not known. but Stankey told employees that the company is targeting partial occupancy for the new headquarters “as early as the second half of 2028.”
The future of the Discovery District
One key thing was missing in AT&T’s statement regarding its new Plano headquarters — the fate of the Discovery District in Downtown Dallas.
In 2022, AT&T had nearly 6,000 workers assigned to its downtown offices and its lease at the 37-story Whitacre Tower doesn’t expire until 2030. The Dallas Economic Development Corp. estimates AT&T has nearly 10,700 employees in the city of Dallas.
The Discovery District, opened in 2021, includes a massive video screen, a food hall, outdoor seating space and more.
How will AT&T’s relocation affect Dallas?
AT&T’s relocation from Downtown Dallas could plunge property values by 30%, costing the area an estimated $2.7 billion in overall value, according to Downtown Dallas Inc., The News reported.
What Leaders Are Saying
Plano leaders heralded AT&T’s relocation as a “major win” for the city.
“This is not something new,” Plano council member Rick Horne said, adding, “Plano has had some great success with Toyota [North America] moving here, Liberty Mutual, Capital One, Boeing … Frito-Lay, PepsiCo, all those have come here for a reason.”
Ray Perryman, president and CEO of The Perryman Group, an economic research and analysis firm in Waco, declared that Plano is leading a “new renaissance” given the city’s success in attracting major employers.
City of Dallas leaders, however, were blunt about the decision. Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson and city manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert released statements saying the company preferred a headquarters site that was more “horizontal, suburban-style” and that had “significant acreage.”
“Our city’s unique economic strengths are what attracted AT&T to our urban core in 2008, and Dallas has become a global economic powerhouse since then,” Johnson said. “But as we worked to retain AT&T, it became clear that its current leaders preferred a large horizontal, suburban-style campus rather than the skyscrapers that define our city center.”
Staff writers Nick Wooten, Lilly Kersh and Sasha Richie contributed to this report.