The Brief<\/p>\n
AT&T is building a 280-foot communications tower at its new Plano headquarters, which looks like a smaller version of Dallas\u2019s iconic Reunion Tower.<\/p>\n
The Plano City Council approved the project on Tuesday, highlighting the structure as a landmark sculpture for the Legacy West district.<\/p>\n
AT&T\u2019s move to Plano from Downtown Dallas is underway with demolition work happening on the former EDS headquarters already at the site. Employees could begin relocating by late 2028.<\/p>\n
PLANO, Texas – AT&T is moving forward with plans to build a “mini Reunion Tower” at its new global headquarters in Plano.<\/p>\n
What’s new<\/p>\n
The Plano City Council approved a zoning change on Tuesday that will allow the company to build the 280-foot tower.<\/p>\n
Concept renderings show it looking very similar to Reunion Tower near Downtown Dallas, but it\u2019s about half as tall and features the AT&T logo as the ball.<\/p>\n
AT&T needed special zoning approval because it plans to use the tower as a communications antenna.<\/p>\n
What they’re saying<\/p>\n
“If there\u2019s going to be a company that’s going to come in and do something different, who better than a 150-year-old company that is bringing its headquarters here. And even better, they’re no longer relying on a building to be iconic. They’re using a sculpture. So, I think it\u2019s an extraordinary thing and I think it\u2019s going to add so much to our city, not just to Legacy west and that district right there,” said Plano Councilmember Bob Kehr.<\/p>\n
The backstory<\/p>\n
In January, AT&T announced it was moving its global headquarters from Downtown Dallas to a 54-acre suburban campus along Legacy Drive in Plano.<\/p>\n
Demolition work is already underway to remove the former Electronic Data Systems headquarters in that space. The full demolition could take five to six months.<\/p>\n
The company hopes to have some employees on the new campus by late 2028.<\/p>\n
Dig deeper<\/p>\n
In a letter to employees after the move was announced, AT&T\u2019s CEO said a big reason for the move was that the nature of the company and the work have evolved.<\/p>\n
The company also cited a desire to consolidate all three of its North Texas locations. Downtown Dallas crime was not mentioned as a reason for the move.<\/p>\n
However, Gov. Greg Abbott blamed Dallas city leaders, arguing that Dallas has a crime problem because the city\u2019s police department isn\u2019t fully funded.<\/p>\n
Dallas leaders took offense to that statement and pointed out their efforts to both reduce crime and homelessness in the city.<\/p>\n
The Source<\/p>\n
The information in this story comes from Tuesday’s Plano City Council meeting, supporting documents from the meeting agenda, and past news coverage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Brief AT&T is building a 280-foot communications tower at its new Plano headquarters, which looks like a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[113430,109,5592,15258,160,18650,162,161,55541],"class_list":["post-315581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-plano","tag-communications-tower","tag-downtown-dallas","tag-headquarters","tag-legacy-west","tag-plano","tag-plano-city-council","tag-plano-headlines","tag-plano-news","tag-reunion-tower"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}