A former call center in northwestern Dallas has become a magnet for vandals, burglars, and vagrants, and City officials have done nothing to resolve it, according to someone who has worked adjacent to the building for the last couple of years.
The worker, who asked not to be identified out of concerns for his safety and that of his coworkers, told The Dallas Express that the 15-acre site at 9999 Technology Blvd. was abandoned in 2019.
“They offshored all of the jobs that were in this building and just abandoned it,” he said. “There’s a near-constant amount of activity there. The glass panels are broken and busted out, and people have been coming up to the building with U-Hauls and hauling stuff out.”
In 2019, French company Teleperformance closed the center, laying off nearly 400 people as the company restructured operations, the Dallas Business Journal reported. Today, Teleperformance employs roughly half a million people, and in 2023, it posted revenue of more than $8.9 billion.
Central Appraisal District records show that the City of Dallas has owned the two-story gold-veneered glass-paneled building, constructed in 1984, since July 2023. As of last year, the site’s certified value was almost $1.7 million.
“People are stealing stuff from the inside, hauling off AC units and office equipment,” DX’s source told the news outlet. “People park in our employee lot because it’s not fenced in and hop over to the next property. They’ve done unknown things in there, with people always running in and out. A few weeks ago, police and the coroner showed up.”
As previously reported by DX, polling has indicated that most Dallas residents believe the City government is doing a poor job of “keeping crime low; addressing homelessness, vagrancy, and panhandling; keeping public spaces clean; facilitating construction and expansion through its building permitting process; and providing a favorable environment to conduct business.”
When asked to provide the last two years of data on service calls to 9999 Tecnology Blvd., a Dallas police spokesperson told DX the news outlet needed to file an open records request. As of Friday, the request had not been answered.
“An unknown number of people are squatting in there,” the source said. “The building and premises are completely unsecured. They have no barrier to the parking lots — nothing. I left a 311 request, and it said they would update it to involve a police report. But it’s gotten progressively worse over the last three months.”
The Dallas 311 system allows residents and others to report concerns regarding City services and “overall quality of life.” It’s designed to be a “one-stop shop type of call center addressing all concerns on one call.” However, the system’s usefulness has been questioned.
The building on Technology Boulevard is in Dallas City Council Member Omar Narvaez’s District 6. He did not respond to a message seeking comment.