With AT&T leaving downtown, municipal leaders turned to a new source of hope for Dallas’ city center: Y’all Street.
But while a booming financial sector has a lot to offer this town, it’s unclear that Y’all Street will actually be the deliverance that downtown leaders imply it can be.
On Monday, the telecommunications giant and downtown’s largest employer confirmed it was headed for the suburbs. By 2028, AT&T hopes to be partially moved into a brand-new, 54-acre campus in Plano that will replace Akard Street’s Whitacre Tower as the company’s global headquarters.
It’s the biggest domino so far to fall in what’s become a troubling trend for the city: a hollowing out of downtown triggered in part by concerns over crime and homelessness ― and the attractiveness of shiny, spacious, bespoke campuses near the Metroplex’s fastest growing areas.
Business Briefing
AT&T employees walk through the AT&T Discovery District outside AT&T headquarters in downtown Dallas, Monday, Jan. 5, 2026.
Elías Valverde II / Staff Photographer
In the wake of the AT&T news, Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson released a statement projecting optimism about Dallas’ future, as city leaders looked to move forward from the loss. He shouted out “Y’all Street” in particular.
“We have added $27 billion in new development since 2019 and have more on the way, such as the exciting new Goldman Sachs’ campus and our fast-growing ‘Y’all Street’ financial sector,” the statement read. “The future of our city — and of our urban core — is bright, and this departure ultimately will open the door for us to explore new possibilities.”
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Other leaders expressed similar sentiments in their statements responding to AT&T.
A City of Dallas flag flies in front of AT&T headquarters building Whitacre Tower pictured in downtown Dallas, Monday, Jan. 5, 2026.
Elías Valverde II / Staff Photographer
“The company’s announcement does not change our conviction that Downtown Dallas is one of the best places in the country to do business. The urban core remains the economic engine of the region and the center of ‘Y’all Street,’” wrote Downtown Dallas Inc. President and CEO Jennifer Scripps.
“Dallas is home to one of the most diverse economies in the nation, and we are not defined by any single company or industry. That diversity is why Dallas remains the center of ‘Y’all Street’ and continues to attract and support numerous global companies across a wide range of sectors,” reads a LinkedIn post from Linda McMahon, the CEO of the Dallas Economic Development Corp.
Reality is much murkier. Only one major financial institution is currently investing in a presence downtown, defined as the area circumscribed by I-35, I-30, I-45 and Woodall Rogers Freeway. In 2024, JPMorgan Chase expanded its Akard Street office overlooking Klyde Warren Park and on the edge of the central business district.
The rest of the boom is taking place in Victory Park, Uptown and beyond.
Where the Y’all Street sidewalk ends
The Goldman Sachs campus touted by Johnson, an 800,000-square-foot development that will house 5,000 workers, sits just northwest of the Perot Museum of Nature and Science. A few blocks away by the American Airlines Center, Canadian financial giant Scotiabank is moving in with 1,000 new jobs.
Bank of America will relocate 1,000 workers from its downtown Bank of America Plaza to a 30-story skyscraper under construction on the Uptown side of Klyde Warren Park. The New York Stock Exchange, meanwhile, is running its new NYSE Texas exchange out of an office in Oak Lawn’s Old Parkland.
Even existing Texas regional banks like Texas Capital, Amegy Bank and Frost Bank maintain their offices outside downtown.
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Other developments may be metaphorically on Y’all Street, but outside Dallas city limits. Wells Fargo is building its $500 million campus in Irving, while USAA recently cut the ribbon on an expansion of its Plano office, which will employ 3,600 people in total.
Bank of America will occupy almost half of the new Parkside tower planned on the north side of Klyde Warren Park in Uptown.
Kohn Pedersen Fox
So what part of the boom can downtown still get in on? The Texas Stock Exchange — if not Y’all Street’s most notable player, certainly it’s main character – has yet to announce the location of its planned permanent headquarters. It’s calling it the Texas Market Center, which will feature a business museum, broadcast studio and more. And last year, Nasdaq also announced a regional headquarters in Dallas, whose location is yet unknown.
But even if downtown lands those two as tenants, employers of thousands like AT&T and Goldman Sachs they are not.
Add in potential layoffs at Comerica, headquartered at downtown’s Comerica Bank Tower, and the imminent absorption of the Dallas bank into Ohio’s Fifth Third Bank entirely, it may appear that Y’all Street dead ends just south of Woodall Rogers Freeway.
‘No big, monster bullet’
Not so, contends Scripps, who pointed out in an interview with The News that while the flashy projects may not be downtown, the growth of financial services in D-FW requires a lot of support services that are.
Downtown’s largest lease expansion last year, she said, was at Fountain Place by Integrity, an insurance and wealth management technology platform. Meanwhile, downtown is still home to myriad law firms.
“A lot of them are growing because they service financial services,” she said.
To capitalize on the financial boom further, downtown Dallas will need to get creative and diversify, former city manager and current University of Texas at Dallas professor Ted Benavides said.
“I don’t think there’s one big, monster bullet that’s going to solve all the issues, but I think that a vibrant downtown Dallas is vital to the region,” he said. “It needs to morph a little bit to be more tourist-oriented, to get more residential, to get people embedded in there that are not dependent on business.”
E’Nette, 12, and Emmaah Deboise, 6, of Rowlett, play in a fountain at Klyde Warren Park on Friday, Dec. 25, 2025, in Dallas.
Angela Piazza / Staff Photographer
Scripps described the “work, live, play” philosophy guiding many cities. Downtown has always had and still has the “work,” and the “live” is a work in progress.
Benavides said that while certain companies move to the suburbs, “not everybody wants to be in suburbia,” especially as financial services create an even bigger draw for young coastal professionals.
“There’s a bunch of people from the West Coast, East Coast, or wherever they come from, large cities, they might want more of a downtown vibe.”
According to Scripps, that bears out in the data, at least to start.
“We know that a lot of the apartments in downtown Dallas are leased by people who are corporate transfers into the market,” she said. “We know a certain percentage of people, when they move to the market, might do a two-year lease in downtown and then decide [to move], but we’re okay with being the welcome wagon for the whole region.”
Construction continued on a midrise apartment in July 2025 in downtown Dallas. “We know that a lot of the apartments in downtown Dallas are leased by people who are corporate transfers into the market,” said Jennifer Scripps, Downtown Dallas Inc. president and CEO.
Shafkat Anowar / Staff Photographer
Over 15,000 people call downtown home and apartment occupancy hovers in the low 90s, Scripps said. Office-to-residential conversions are ongoing, though now with the challenge of moving on from smaller and older buildings to concentrated vacancy like that in the proposed Comerica Bank Tower redesign.
That leaves “play,” which is where Scripps feels downtown needs the most work. The new convention center may help, as have the additions of parks and green space throughout the neighborhood, and the Arts District remains a hotspot for prestigious entertainment. But downtown needs more.
“We need those social spaces that attract people,” she said. “Those spaces make a difference in a place like downtown, because it gets people to come downtown and stay longer and explore.”
To accomplish those goals, Benavides emphasized the Downtown 360 Plan, a comprehensive action plan adopted by City Council that establishes design guidance and strategic priorities for success downtown. Both he and Scripps also described the importance of connecting neighborhoods within downtown and downtown to other areas of the city. While the city has notched major wins in executing its vision for downtown, as seen this week, there have also been losses.
With an opportunity like Y’all Street coming, and thousands of professionals poised to move in, Dallas can’t be caught on its back foot.
“I think you can always miss the bus, but I think it’s incumbent on the city and everybody else that’s interested in a successful downtown to create systems to try to make them all welcome and get them integrated into the community as fast as possible,” Benavides said.
“I think [Dallas] is pretty ready, but I think it’s gonna have to move faster, and I think [city leaders] know that.”
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