The future of Comerica Bank Tower remains unclear. The high-rise was designed by architect Philip Johnson and opened in 1987. The tower had served as Comerica’s headquarters since 2007.
File photo/Staff
Fifth Third Bank is moving its Texas regional headquarters to a new development in Preston Center and will vacate its current home in Dallas’ third-tallest skyscraper within the next 90 days.
Brian Enzler, Fifth Third’s North Texas region president, told The Dallas Morning News on Tuesday afternoon that it has signed a long-term lease for multiple floors at 8300 Douglas, a mixed-use development that will feature a 12-story office building and a 17-story residential tower from owner Ramrock and developer Lincoln Property Co. The bank is expected to move to the new site in late 2028.
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As part of the move, Ohio-based Fifth Third will no longer have an office at Comerica Bank Tower — the landmark 60-story tower at 1717 Main St. that served as Comerica’s headquarters for nearly two decades before it was bought in a nearly $11 billion deal late last year. The lease and naming rights attached to the tower were set to end in 2028, but Fifth Third has opted to leave the property.
Enzler said the Preston Center site was a central location in close proximity to employees’ homes, airports and the bank’s other North Texas offices. Conversations about public safety and parking downtown “did not come up in the discussions” about Fifth Third’s decision to ultimately leave Comerica Bank Tower, he said.
The new location also gives the bank the chance to use its real estate more efficiently. Fifth Third will take 63,000 square feet at the new development for roughly 350 employees. They will occupy the building’s seventh and eighth floors and create a new financial center/branch on the first floor.
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Its current downtown site is roughly 200,000 square feet and houses 170 employees today, he said. A few other Dallas office locations will consolidate at the Preston Center site.
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“We decided that as we integrate our two firms and become the new Fifth Third, optimizing our real estate footprint sooner rather than later was going to be the best thing for our customers and employees,” he said. “With the acquisition, we have a lot of roles that are duplicative, and we’re optimizing our footprint to reflect that. … We don’t need 200,000 square feet for our regional headquarters.”
The bank’s downtown Dallas workforce shrank as a result of the merger, but the exact scale of the layoffs remains unclear. Comerica notified the Texas Workforce Commission earlier this year that it would lay off 184 employees at its Frisco Star Tower facility in Collin County starting in mid-March. Fifth Third CEO Tim Spence estimated the bank’s downtown headcount at roughly 350 in February.
“We’re pretty far along in our integration,” Enzler said. “I can’t tell if you definitively if there will be additional [Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification] notices forthcoming, but I can tell you that the vast majority of the work with respect to notifying employees about their roles has already taken place.”
Ramrock Real Estate LLC, in partnership with Lincoln Property Company, HKS and Willow Bridge Property Management, will bring new office and residential towers to Preston Center.
Courtesy of HKS
Fifth Third’s North Park location, at 8850 Boedeker St., will serve as its temporary headquarters once it leaves downtown. The future Douglas Avenue hub and the North Park site will be part of Fifth Third’s broader Dallas-Fort Worth network. The bank also has locations at 17 Cowboys Way in Frisco and 5201 E. RL Thornton Freeway in Dallas.
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Following its merger with Comerica, Fifth Third intends to open 150 branches in Texas — a $700 million investment that will position Fifth Third among the top four banks in terms of branch presence in Dallas, Houston and Austin.
Over 50 sites for new branch locations have been secured, and 23 are located in North Texas. The bank is still doing business as both Fifth Third and Comerica until system conversions take place over the Labor Day weekend, Enzler said.
“D-FW is a special place in the world in terms of places to do business, and this market was one of the appealing attributes of the Comerica acquisition for Fifth Third,” he said. “We have a great deal of talent. We have a large client base that sits in this market today, and we … intend to gain market share here through our investments.”
The 8300 Douglas project is expected to feature a 12-story, 300,000-square-foot office building; a 17-story, 147-unit residential tower; a 35,000-square-foot rooftop park; and 24,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and restaurant space. The redevelopment site is 2½ acres, which covers the southern half of the block running along Luther Lane.
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“Bringing Fifth Third to 8300 Douglas is a definitive endorsement of the quality and vision behind this project,” Robert Dozier, Ramrock Real Estate’s president, said in a statement. “In a market where companies are demanding ‘flight to quality’ with amenities that rival those of a luxury hotel, this development stands alone. We are proud to provide a home for Fifth Third that reflects the bank’s commitment to excellence and positions its Texas regional headquarters at the epicenter of Dallas business and community life.”
Fifth Third is among the project’s first announced tenants. Enzler said the bank plans to have signage at the building, and a mix of employees will call the Preston Center site home. He said he hopes the Preston Center site will serve as the bank’s de facto second headquarters.
Fifth Third also looked at other properties in downtown and Uptown before selecting the Preston Center site. Enzler declined to name exact sites considered by the bank.
The future of Comerica Bank Tower once Fifth Third exits is not yet clear. The high-rise was designed by architect Philip Johnson and opened in 1987. The tower had served as Comerica’s headquarters since 2007, when the bank moved its headquarters from Detroit to Dallas.
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The property is 68% leased to date. Once Fifth Third leaves, the tower’s occupancy may to drop 57%, according to data from real estate firm CoStar.
Toronto-based Slate Asset Management acquired the skyscraper in 2024, and the Canadian owners pitched an ambitious redevelopment plan that would turn convert some of the 1.6-million-square-foot building’s office space into a 242-room hotel and 240 residential units.
The current state of the redevelopment remains unclear. Comerica Bank Tower was one of 15 sites visited by Dallas officials who were scouting locations for a possible new City Hall.