{"id":464822,"date":"2026-10-13T15:12:22","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T15:12:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/464822\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T15:12:22","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T15:12:22","slug":"morgan-stanleys-planned-dallas-headquarters-could-fill-att-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/464822\/","title":{"rendered":"Morgan Stanley’s planned Dallas headquarters could fill AT&T gap"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson recently said Morgan Stanley\u2019s planned Uptown hub will make up for AT&T\u2019s departure to Plano<\/a>. The reality, however, is less straightforward. <\/p>\n

On Sept. 28, the New York-based investment bank announced plans to open<\/a> a U.S. hub in a high-rise on McKinney Avenue, near the heart of Uptown. The move is set to bring a $684 million direct capital investment from Morgan Stanley to Dallas, with an overall financial impact expected to run close to $1.3 billion, according to estimates<\/a> by local officials.<\/p>\n

State and city officials quickly hailed the move as a win for Dallas\u2019 rapidly growing financial sector<\/a>, often dubbed \u201cY\u2019all Street.\u201d In a release, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott proclaimed, \u201cOpportunity\u2019s address is now Y\u2019all Street,\u201d while Johnson told CBS News the moment marks Dallas \u201cbecoming a true financial services hub for this country<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson has been among the loudest voices promoting Y\u2019all Street\u2019s growth. After recruiting trips to New York City, the two-term mayor told the audience at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas that \u201cwe\u2019re choosing to build America\u2019s next financial capital.\u201d In his November 2025 state of the city<\/a> address, Johnson lauded strides made under his tenure, saying \u201ceconomic opportunity is also rising\u201d alongside gains in public safety. The address was livestreamed from the new Texas Stock Exchange.<\/p>\n

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CLOSE\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cThe truth is, Dallas is a better place to live and to work than it was seven years ago. It\u2019s better for young professionals just starting their careers. It\u2019s better for working families with kids,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n

That was, of course, before the news broke on Jan. 5 that AT&T would relocate its corporate headquarters<\/a> from downtown Dallas to a new campus in Plano. AT&T has about 6,000 downtown employees, and the loss of the Fortune 500 giant could translate into\u00a0a $2.7 billion hit\u00a0to nearby property values and tax revenues, as WFAA previously reported. Downtown Dallas already has some of the country\u2019s highest office vacancy\u00a0rates, and the exit could leave a hole in its center.<\/p>\n

With the Dallas Stars and Fifth Third Bank leaving the urban core, along with the closure of Neiman Marcus\u2019 original flagship store, some leaders have raised serious concerns<\/a> about the city\u2019s economic health beyond downtown. Despite rapid growth in the wider Dallas-Fort Worth area, the city\u2019s population has stagnated<\/a> in recent years as more jobs move to the suburbs, especially in northern Dallas County and Collin County.<\/p>\n

But in a rare joint interview with The Dallas Morning News, alongside City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert, Johnson said that the successful courtship<\/a> of Morgan Stanley contradicts the often-painted picture of a faltering local economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne Morgan Stanley building is a wash for what AT&T is building in Plano,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cThis is real money, and these are very sophisticated people we\u2019re talking about. So I think the scoreboard is all we need to point to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Hold both thoughts in our head\u2019<\/p>\n

The mayor, who told Dallas City Council members that \u201cthe wolf is up the tollway<\/a>\u201d after the Stars announced plans to leave for Plano, is clearly keeping tabs on the intense economic competition from northern suburbs. But is he counting up Dallas\u2019 total realistically?<\/p>\n

Cullum Clark, an economist at Southern Methodist University and a fellow at the Bush Center, said the number of jobs Morgan Stanley would bring won\u2019t match AT&T\u2019s current footprint, but they could be more economically impactful on an individual basis.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a little bit apples and oranges, right? The number of people Morgan Stanley\u2019s bringing, if reports are to be believed, at 3,800 is not nearly as big as 6,000,\u201d Clark said. \u201cOn the other hand, it\u2019s also probably the case that, on average, the Morgan Stanley employees are considerably more highly compensated. So the amount of income you could say might be closer, or for all I know, maybe Morgan Stanley would be ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond the immediate number of jobs added, Clark said Morgan Stanley\u2019s investment in Dallas could catalyze further growth in the Y\u2019all Street sector, which he said has surpassed most expectations in its early run and is significant in its own right. The Texas Stock Exchange, billed as a rival to the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ, has gained significant momentum in recent weeks<\/a>, with companies like Dillard\u2019s and Energy Transfer jumping on the train and making the exchange their primary listing venue.<\/p>\n

With other companies like Goldman Sachs and Scotiabank investing heavily in Dallas buildouts, Clark said the city is reaching a point of \u201ccritical mass\u201d with the Morgan Stanley news, as companies typically invest near where their competitors are building. <\/p>\n

\u201cNo other city could claim what we\u2019re claiming,\u201d Clark said. \u201cI mean, you got very different flavors. Like San Francisco can say the number of jobs that like Anthropic and OpenAI is going up in that very specific sector, but you know this is bigger in employment terms\u2026 I don\u2019t think you\u2019d want to trade our situation. I don\u2019t mean just the metro area, of course, but you wouldn\u2019t even trade the city of Dallas job growth situation for really any place else.\u201d<\/p>\n

But even then, he said, financial jobs cluster around a small area immediately abutting Klyde Warren Park in Uptown and the northernmost reaches of the Central Business District.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s the parts of our city where the job base is shrinking, and there are other parts not that far away from there, where it\u2019s growing, and we just have to be able to hold both thoughts in our head at the same time,\u201d Clark said.<\/p>\n

What about downtown?<\/p>\n

Johnson\u2019s comparison to the loss of AT&T makes it easy to question the move\u2019s impact on downtown Dallas. The telecommunications giant is the largest employer in the central business district, and its departure highlighted lingering questions about the long-term viability<\/a> of doing business in the urban core amid lingering concerns about public safety and aging real estate.<\/p>\n

Downtown, Clark said, is on a downward growth curve. Crime and out-of-date office space have led to decay in the district, where vacancies linger near 27% and the workforce population has more than halved from pre-COVID highs, he added. Meanwhile, more than 20,000 people work in Uptown Dallas every day, a far cry from the early 2000s, according to prior reporting by D<\/a> Magazine.<\/p>\n

\u201cToo many of the buildings are old, and tenants aren\u2019t going to want to be there,\u201d Clark said. \u201cThere are too many better alternatives. So I think there\u2019ll be shrinkage for quite some time to come. I don\u2019t know how fast it will go, but from the pure point of view of health, particularly the southern part of the CBD, well, clearly the employment trends are downwards, the residential trend is upwards, but it\u2019s not explosively upwards right now. So got a lot of work to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The southern end of downtown faces some of the largest hurdles, and the future of the City Hall debate<\/a> will help shape the \u201cTLC\u201d Clark said the area badly needs. He added that he is concerned about the situation on the southwestern end of downtown, where he is concerned that plans for the renovated Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center could be \u201cdeteriorating,\u201d amid late-stage design changes<\/a>, funding cuts and shifting cost estimates.<\/p>\n

City leaders like Johnson have consistently called for diversifying downtown Dallas into a multi-use district with more vibrant residential neighborhoods and commercial offerings, something Clark supports. Over 16,000 people now live in the CBD, a large increase from earlier decades when only a couple hundred residents had downtown addresses. Downtown Dallas, Inc. recently unveiled a five-pillar revitalization plan to double downtown residents to 32,000 by the end of 2036<\/a>. The plan also calls for economic redevelopment, including converting downtown office buildings into residential properties or pedestrian amenities, DDI President Jennifer Scripps told D Magazine. AT&T\u2019s soon-to-be-former home, the Discovery District, is expected to be a pivotal property in the planned redevelopment. <\/p>\n

Clark said it\u2019s hard to tell whether the Morgan Stanley Hub and Y\u2019all Street investment will bring relief to the traditionally defined downtown area. He can\u2019t say development incentives for the urban core over other areas are the way to go, but he added that investing in public safety and limited teardowns could encourage further growth southward.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy guess is [Y\u2019all Street] keeps spreading,\u201d he said. \u201cI can\u2019t say for sure in what direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the urban core, as we\u2019ve known it, is evolving with the new developments in neighborhoods like Uptown and the Cedars. Clark said it could be fitting to think about downtown Dallas in a wider economic sense, in which case it doesn\u2019t make sense to focus exclusively on one area. So even if AT&T\u2019s supposed replacement is planned more than a mile away from the Discovery District, Morgan Stanley is still a win for Dallas\u2019 core, Clark said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t want to just say like \u2018Oh I dismiss that out of hand because I don\u2019t care about uptown, all I care about is the CBD,\u2019\u201d Clark said. \u201cWell, that would be a little short-sighted. We ought to care. I mean, every area spills over a little bit to other nearby areas, and from the general economic health of the city point of view, we should want like more jobs taking place in the city of Dallas rather than fewer, and we should want them spread about.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson recently said Morgan Stanley\u2019s planned Uptown hub will make up for AT&T\u2019s departure to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464823,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3084,102,104,103,110],"class_list":["post-464822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-city-hall","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-development"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464822","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=464822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}