Texas A&M leaders opened the first building on the university’s planned Fort Worth campus, marking a major expansion into North Texas.
FORT WORTH, Texas — North Texas high school students interested in earning a degree from Texas A&M University will soon be able to do so closer to home.
Texas A&M officially opened its 228,000-square-foot Law and Education Building during a ceremony Wednesday in downtown Fort Worth, marking the first completed building on the university’s developing North Texas campus.
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Texas A&M System regents, Chancellor Glenn Hegar, university leaders, faculty, staff and community partners also broke ground on the Research and Innovation Building A. The facility will house researchers, state agencies and private-sector partners.
The two buildings will anchor the Switchyard Innovation District, a planned academic hub in southeast downtown Fort Worth focused on education, research, entrepreneurship and business collaboration.
“Growth takes skilled people, sound infrastructure, useful ideas and partners willing to invest for the long haul,” Chairman of the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents Robert L. “Bob” Albritton said. “Texas A&M-Fort Worth brings those things together in one place.”
University officials said the decision to expand into Fort Worth followed a comprehensive needs assessment that identified academic programs, research opportunities and partnerships needed to meet the growing workforce demands of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. According to a university-commissioned economic impact study, the campus is expected to support more than 25,000 jobs and generate more than $3 billion in annual economic impact.
“This is not simply another downtown building or a collection of academic programs,” Hegar said. “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.”