This article was originally published in the Dallas Business Journal. Read the original article and more business content here.
As the first building of the future Texas A&M Fort Worth campus nears completion, officials at the city and university and an influential real estate executive hope the campus will spur billions of dollars of investment and thousands of jobs for the city.
The university’s first building, the Law & Education building, is set to open on Aug. 5. The second building, known as the Research and Innovation building, will start construction on the same day, said Robert Ahdieh, Texas A&M Fort Worth’s chief operating officer.
“We have over 59,000 graduates every single year in DFW from our area universities and colleges … and that’s significant,” Parker said. “That’s the largest percentage in the state of Texas, and we also need to retain that talent with great opportunities and professional tracks for these students to graduate and stay right here in DFW.”
The Texas A&M campus could drive 25,000 jobs and more than $3 billion a year in economic impact once built out, according to an economic impact study. Ahdieh said Fort Worth’s network of growing universities will help foster growth. He points to Boston as an example, which has MIT, Harvard and Boston University among others that helped shape the city. And as trust in higher education has declined over the years, Ahdieh said it’s time to think about the way higher education works with business and cities.