It says a lot about the fortitude of Dallas-Fort Worth’s economy that the biggest story of the past week has been a major company’s decision to relocate from one area to another, rather than the economic headwinds forcing other businesses to shutter completely.
In case you missed it, AT&T last week confirmed plans to establish a new corporate headquarters in Plano. The telecom giant’s reasons are manifold — and definitively yoked to public safety — but one consideration is the desire to create one of those horizontal campuses favored by companies located in the D-FW’s suburbs, rather than the skyscrapers that characterize downtown Dallas’ skyline.
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Despite the one-two punch of AT&T’s corporate relocation and Comerica’s potential layoffs associated with its First Third buyout, the Lone Star State is starting 2026 off with the wind mostly at its back.
A JPMorgan Chase survey of business leaders found broad enthusiasm about 2026, with nearly half of middle-market companies in Texas planning to add jobs as recession fears ebb. Meanwhile, JPMorgan’s data found that tariff woes are less acute in the state when compared to the rest of the country.
Business Briefing
Much of the local economy’s strength rests in 2025 trends that still have considerable momentum — in particular, the artificial intelligence boom driving the growth of data centers in the D-FW, and the migration of banking and investment jobs that’s transforming the region into a global financial powerhouse (fun fact: Dallas has quietly usurped New York City’s crown as the city with the most finance jobs).
As this week’s Business Sunday cover indicates, virtually everyone is talking about “Y’all Street.” JPMorgan now has more workers in Texas than New York, and in a recent letter to clients and shareholders, Texas Capital CEO Rob Holmes cited the emerging financial sector as a force that’s breathing new life into the state’s “miracle” economy. Y’all Street “promises to make Texas into the premier state for financial services of all kinds,” Holmes predicted.
All of which beg the question of whether it will take a Texas-sized miracle to reverse the fortunes of downtown Dallas. Sasha Richie’s cover story explores that very issue, as she juxtaposes the enthusiasm surrounding “Y’all Street” with the unshakeable sense that Dallas’ urban core is losing its luster, as major companies depart for greener pastures.
As one observer told Richie, downtown “…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.”
As January kicks off, “2026 is the year the bull market comes home to Texas,” proclaimed James Lee, head of the upstart Texas Stock Exchange in a LinkedIn post several days ago.
But will that be enough to save what’s left of downtown?
Jim Rossman: How to make the best of a smaller hard drive
Keeping your photo library on a larger external drive will save a ton of space on your internal drive.
Business datebook for Dallas-Fort Worth for the week of Jan. 11
Earnings and important economic reports, and a Texas murder mystery.