AT&T is moving its headquarters office tower, which is currently located in downtown Dallas, to the suburbs. A staple of the Dallas downtown office submarket, the Fortune 500 firm will relocate its global headquarters to a new campus in Plano, Texas. The new development will span 54 acres with the transition set to commence in the second half of 2028.

An employment draw for Dallas, the AT&T headquarters office has roughly 6,000 staff working at its downtown location.

Plano and other suburbs in the Dallas metro area — like McKinney, Frisco and Irving — have an enviable list of major companies in their own right. For example, Toyota is located in Plano, while Wells Fargo and Caterpillar are in Irving.

That said, Dallas proper has Goldman Sachs’ $709 million Victory Park Campus set for completion. It’s located in uptown Dallas and is set to house 5,000 employees in 2028. Even so, the departure of AT&T leaves a large space that could be a challenge to backfill. Additionally, the knock-on effects, the loss of foot traffic and local businesses will be affected, although it’s unclear whether staff of the telecom company will remain at the downtown Discovery District site.

As for how interest in office space in Dallas’ downtown compared to the suburbs in terms of investment, a recent article from The Wall Street Journal noted that investors purchased $51.7 million worth of office property in downtown Dallas in the first three quarters of 2025, compared with $1.8 billion in Dallas’ suburban submarkets.

Meanwhile, compounding the issues for downtown submarkets is that, with today’s demand for new Class A office space, Plano and the suburbs have more new office space going up, whereas downtown stock is growing older.

Amidst this, the metro area as a whole has been one of the fastest-growing in popularity for inward population: The full metro area office vacancy is at 21.7%, which, albeit higher than the national average of 18.5% according to November data from Yardi Research, is still an overall tighter market than Austin, Texas; Seattle; Denver; Detroit; and San Diego. What’s more, the vacancy rate is down by 202 basis points year-over-year through November.

Looking ahead for the downtown commercial real estate, the moves of two of the city’s prominent sports teams could prove pivotal to the state of affairs for the area. Currently, the NBA’s Mavericks and the NHL’s Stars share a stadium at the American Airlines Center in downtown. However, both teams want new arenas — and if they are to be in the downtown area, that could prove a stability tick and boost. Nearby, the Dallas Cowboys are very much in the suburbs, but if either the Mavericks, Stars or both stay downtown, it could prove significant.