Goldman Sachs’ new regional office in Uptown Dallas will be smaller than anticipated but is still expected to bring 5,000 jobs to the area.
Construction on the $500 million project is set to break ground in late 2023, with employees slated to move in by 2027, said Aasem Khalil, a partner at Goldman Sachs and head of the Dallas Office, according to the Dallas Business Journal.
According to Khalil, the project was initially designed to be 900,000 square feet, but plans were reduced to 815,000 feet.
Still, the new building will be one of the largest office developments in Dallas since the 1980s. It will serve as the regional base of operations for the investment bank, with 5,000 employees working out of the office, per the Dallas Business Journal.
“The building is going to be the most energy-efficient and flexible workspace in the Goldman Sachs ecosystem, so the number of employees will continue to trend up,” Khalil told the DBJ. “We are sizing the building appropriately for the size of our workforce and the expected growth that we’re going to have in this region.
“We have a bunch of different design schematics and other considerations, but at the end of the day, we’re settling on a size of building that is appropriate and will allow us to continue to grow.”
The downsizing of plans will not deter anticipated hiring or growth of the new regional office, Khalil asserted.
The company’s new office will consolidate workers from Goldman’s three offices in the DFW area, with the majority of the workers reportedly migrating from the company’s current office in Trammell Crow Center.
Goldman Sachs’ Dallas campus is the first phase of a broader 11-acre mixed-use office and residential development by Dallas-based Hunt Realty Investments, the owner of the Reunion Tower downtown.
“What we’ve built over time here is every function that Goldman Sachs has, generally speaking, is represented in Dallas,” Khalil said, per the DBJ. “That could be investment bankers like myself who are engaging corporate clients routinely. It could be our sales and training folks. It could be people in our private-wealth business, our asset-management business, operations, risk, legal, so it’s a pretty broad swath.”
To incentivize Goldman Sachs to bring a new regional campus to Dallas, the city council passed a resolution in June offering $18 million in grants and property tax reductions, according to the Dallas Business Journal.
Despite continued speculation, Khalil downplayed the idea that the new campus will ultimately spur the firm to move its headquarters from New York City to Dallas.
“We are committed to New York being our global headquarters,” Khalil said.
“We’re proud that we have every function of the firm represented in Dallas. It’s the only city and only office in our ecosystem in the U.S. that has every function represented, but there’s no consideration moving our headquarters there,” he added.
With an average base salary of $90,000, 5,000 employees brings a lot of interactive commerce and spending to the area.
5k X 90k = approaching a half billion of fluid dollar velocity.
I was struck by the fact: “one of the largest office developments in Dallas since the 1980’s”.
I well remember downtown Dallas in the 1970’s and 80’s. It was buzzing. Women wore dresses.