Whether people are walking near the Fort Worth Water Gardens, riding a train downtown or driving on I-35W, Texas A&M-Fort Worth leader Bobby Ahdieh wants them to see his campus at work.
The new Law & Education Building on East 15th Street puts campus activity on display. Ground-floor windows reveal classrooms, laboratories and a working courtroom.
“What if we were able to create right here in downtown Fort Worth the Silicon Valley on the Trinity River — an academic-industry campus and district bringing together multiple disciplines, multiple universities, industry partners, as well as the entire community?” Ahdieh said.
Andrew Gerges, 11, participates in the Spark! PK-12 Engineering Education program during the Texas A&M-Fort Worth Law & Education Building’s opening on Aug. 5, 2026. (Christine Vo | Fort Worth Report)
Although the Texas A&M University System’s flagship campus sits nearly three hours to the south in College Station, the system showed off its expanded Fort Worth presence Wednesday. The eight-story, 228,000-square-foot urban campus of brick, stone, metal and glass opened as the first completed piece of a larger downtown vision.
A&M leaders and local officials also broke ground nearby on the 11-story Research and Innovation Building-A.
The Texas A&M School of Law occupies about half the finished building. The remaining floors house engineering, business, healthcare and other programs from Texas A&M, Tarleton State University and other system members.
Who occupies Texas A&M’s Law & Education Building?
Texas A&M University
School of Law
College of Engineering
College of Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts
Mays Business School
Texas A&M Health
Naresh K. Vashisht College of Medicine
Irma Lerma Rangel College of Pharmacy
Tarleton State University
Health sciences
Biomedical sciences
Biotechnology
Biotechnology Research and Innovation Institute
Medical laboratory sciences
Office of Extended Education and Workforce Development
Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi
Center for Advanced Aviation Technologies
Texas A&M System Agencies
Texas A&M AgriLife Research
Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service
Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station
Texas A&M Transportation Institute
Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service
Texas Division of Emergency Management
The goal, Chancellor Glenn Hegar said, is to blur the lines between education, research and industry needs.
“It is a place where a student can meet a future employer, a researcher can sit across the table from a company facing a real problem and a good idea can become a product, a business or a job,” Hegar said.
Glenn Hegar, chancellor of the Texas A&M University System, smiles during the Texas A&M-Fort Worth Law & Education Building opening on Aug. 5, 2026. (Christine Vo | Fort Worth Report)
That goal shaped the open staircases with seating areas and charging outlets, which encourage students studying different fields to linger and cross paths. Ground-floor laboratories and a courtroom for law classes and real proceedings, including the Texas Business Court hearings, offer passersby another view into campus life.
“You look inside and there’s a machine doing something,” Ahdieh said, “or there’s people doing something in the lab.”
Bobby Ahdieh, Texas A&M-Fort Worth chief operating officer, gives higher education reporter Dang Le a view of the staircase during a tour of the Texas A&M-Fort Worth Law & Education Building on July 24, 2026. (Christine Vo | Fort Worth Report)
The building also marks A&M’s growing investment in Fort Worth. Regents began with an $85 million planning estimate in 2022. This year, system construction records listed the project at $227.5 million. Ahdieh told the Fort Worth Report the total cost is $240 million.
‘A slam-dunk’
Texas A&M’s presence in Fort Worth predates the building.
The system acquired Texas Wesleyan University’s law school in 2013, and Tarleton State has offered health science programs in Fort Worth for decades. The new building gives those operations a shared home.
Ahdieh met with John Goff, chairman and CEO of Crescent Real Estate, in February 2020. A planned 20-minute conversation stretched to about 90.
About a month later, Ahdieh recalled, Goff crawled through a hole onto the law school’s roof to survey the surrounding downtown blocks. Goff then called the Fort Worth vision “a slam-dunk” and flew to College Station that fall to pitch it to then-Chancellor John Sharp.
“Great cities don’t just grow; they invest. They invest in education because education creates opportunity, and opportunity is what builds the future,” Goff said, referring to the partnership between A&M and local lawmakers.
Chief Operating Officer Bobby Ahdieh will lead Texas A&M-Fort Worth as its downtown vision takes shape. Ahdieh became the dean of A&M Law in 2018. (Christine Vo | Fort Worth Report)
Mayor Mattie Parker said the system worked with Fort Worth and other higher education institutions to consider programs that supplement — rather than duplicate — regional offerings. The focus turned toward sectors driving Fort Worth’s economy, including healthcare, aerospace, manufacturing and engineering.
The completed campus could support more than 25,000 direct and indirect jobs and generate more than $3 billion in annual economic activity, according to A&M estimates.
Mayor Mattie Parker signals “gig ’em” during the Texas A&M-Fort Worth Law & Education Building opening on Aug. 5, 2026, in Fort Worth. (Christine Vo | Fort Worth Report)
‘Silicon Valley on the Trinity River’
Immediately after the opening ceremony ended, leaders were ready to break ground on the next project.
The Research and Innovation Building-A, scheduled for completion in 2029, will anchor the Switchyard Innovation District across southeastern downtown. Research areas include aerospace, engineering, agriculture, health sciences, virtual production, medicine, food and nutrition science, biotechnology and transportation.
“We look at the opportunity with the industry here,” said Robert Albritton, A&M System Board of Regents chair. “It’s so broad, and yet it has so many unmet needs.”
City and A&M leaders commemorate the groundbreaking of the Research & Innovation Building-A with a ceremonial dirt turning during the Texas A&M-Fort Worth Law & Education Building opening on Aug. 5, 2026. (Christine Vo | Fort Worth Report)
A study commissioned during the pandemic identified a major gap in Fort Worth’s economy, Parker said: a tier-one university system — an elite classification for top research institutions.
“UTA is headquartered in Arlington. We’re so proud of TCU on their pathway to become a research tier one university,” she said. “But it was very important to think about that missing component.”
Regents approved the research building’s $300 million budget in May. The A&M System has invested more than half a billion dollars for the Fort Worth vision, Albritton said.
“Today we celebrate finishing one job and beginning another,” he said.
Bobby Ahdieh, Texas A&M-Fort Worth chief operating officer, looks out at Fort Worth during a tour of the Texas A&M-Fort Worth Law & Education Building on July 24, 2026. (Christine Vo | Fort Worth Report)
‘In it for the long run’
About two weeks before the opening, Ahdieh stood on the eighth floor and observed the landscape he hopes commuters and pedestrians will soon see differently.
Three more buildings are planned.
The Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts Building could break ground within seven to nine months, followed by a second research building in two to four years, Ahdieh said.
The law school’s older building on Commerce Street will remain in use while the system develops later phases. Eventually, A&M might replace it with a Gateway Building, which could include offices, laboratories, an auditorium, conference space and executive education programs.
Ahdieh estimated the five-building campus could be completed within five to seven years, although demand and partnerships will determine the pace.
A rendering of Texas A&M University System’s vision for Fort Worth. Robert Ahdieh, Texas A&M-Fort Worth chief operating officer, estimated the area could be completed within five to seven years, although demand and partnerships will determine the pace. (Courtesy | Texas A&M University System)
The Switchyard Innovation District would connect A&M with nearby businesses, the Fort Worth Convention Center, Water Gardens, hotels and Fort Worth Central Station. Ahdieh hopes the investment spurs offices, apartments and other development to replace blocks dominated by surface parking, he said.
The research building’s budget includes $40 million in Fort Worth tax increment financing funds, which helps pay for a five-level parking structure. Ahdieh said the city also supports infrastructure, such as utility and sewer connections.
“The fact that it will attract companies to locate in Fort Worth and to locate in downtown that wouldn’t do so otherwise makes it even more valuable or impactful a development for the city,” Ahdieh said.
The city, county and A&M also support the Fort Worth-Tarrant County Innovation Partnership, which connects the campus with companies and other industry partners.
“They’re in it for the long run,” Parker said of A&M.
An unmanned aerial system from the Autonomy Research Institute sits on display during the Texas A&M-Fort Worth Law & Education Building Grand Opening on Aug. 5, 2026, in Fort Worth. (Christine Vo | Fort Worth Report)
Campus at work
By 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, the pavement was warming as lawmakers and university leaders lined up outside for the groundbreaking.
Behind a glass window with large white “Texas A&M Fort Worth” letters, a four-day advanced manufacturing boot camp continued. Students in the federally supported program sat at worktables and moved among machinery, learning to operate the equipment and produce parts.
The two scenes unfolded together: As development grows outside, learning happens within.
Just as Ahdieh envisioned.
The Research & Innovation Building-A breaks ground with a ceremonial dirt turning during the Texas A&M-Fort Worth Law & Education Building Grand Opening on Aug. 5, 2026, in Fort Worth. (Christine Vo | Fort Worth Report)
Dang Le is the higher education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at dang.le@fortworthreport.org.
The Fort Worth Report partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.
The Report’s higher education coverage is supported in part by major higher education institutions in Tarrant County, including Tarleton State University, Tarrant County College, Texas A&M-Fort Worth Christian University, Texas Wesleyan University, the University of Texas at Arlington and UNT Health Fort Worth.
At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
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