Morgan Stanley Reportedly Moves Closer to $1.3B Dallas Hub With Downtown Lease
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It looks like Morgan Stanley is ready to put down deeper roots in Dallas, with the Wall Street giant reportedly signaling it chose the Big D over suburban Atlanta for a new regional hub.
Morgan Stanley signed a lease last month at downtown’s Fountain Place, providing a temporary home while a roughly $1.3 billion Uptown office project takes shape. The firm is leasing 123,000 square feet, with an option to expand its footprint. The lease is expected to run about five years, according to The Dallas Morning News.
As previously reported by CandysDirt.com, Dallas officials put together an incentive package worth up to $18.5 million along with substantial property tax abatements to lure Morgan Stanley away from the other main contender, Alpharetta, Georgia, where the company already employs over 3,000 people.
If all parts of the deal go through, it would be a major win for Dallas’ rapidly expanding financial sector and another indication that the much-hyped “Y’all Street” movement is becoming considerably more than a clever branding exercise.
The Dallas plan calls for a two-stage expansion, according to city documents on the incentives package. First comes Fountain Place, which could see Morgan Stanley leasing 255,000 square feet and investing roughly $97 million in real estate and business personal property improvements. About 1,500 employees are expected to work at the location.
Morgan Stanley would then move into a new office tower at 2401 McKinney Ave. near Fairmount Street. The financial services firm would lease roughly 700,000 square feet for at least 16 years and invest hundreds of millions of dollars into the project. Developer Trammell Crow Co. is expected to spend another roughly $650 million constructing the tower.
By the end of 2035, the Uptown operation is expected to employ about 3,800 people, consisting of existing Dallas-area employees, relocated positions, and new hires. Another 1,000 positions could eventually follow.
The deal would be a big feather in Uptown’s cap, with the district becoming known for its concentration of financial sector investment. Goldman Sachs is already developing its 800,000-square-foot campus at the North End project near Victory Park, where it has committed to creating and retaining a combined 5,000 full-time jobs.
Banks are also being joined by exchanges. The Texas Stock Exchange began rolling out trading operations in July, marking a major milestone for a venture backed by more than $275 million from major financial players. TXSE plans to establish its permanent headquarters and Texas Market Center at the new Bank of America Tower at Parkside in Uptown. Meanwhile, NYSE Texas has planted its flag at Old Parkland, and NASDAQ has also established a Dallas presence.
Dallas officials have made financial-sector recruitment an increasingly public part of the city’s economic development strategy. Mayor Eric Johnson and City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert traveled to New York earlier this year with a delegation of Dallas business and civic leaders specifically to pitch the city to Wall Street firms.
