The Big 12 Conference is moving its headquarters this fall from one office building to another in the same community.
The organization’s current space is on East John Carpenter Freeway in Las Colinas. Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark told The Dallas Morning News that the upcoming move to Williams Square in the Irving community can be attributed to conference growth, as well as the growth of the organization’s staff.
The Big 12 is expanding to 16 teams, and the 2024 college football season is the last that will include Texas and Oklahoma. Those two teams are moving to the SEC. To combat the move, four new teams — Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah — are joining the conference on August 2, creating a 16-team league with a new scheduling arrangement.
Renovated in 2019, Williams Square offers 1.4 million square feet of office space. Those improvements included tenant lounges, new lobbies, and outdoor space, according to the DMN. Last year, Williams Square also opened the Constellation Club. The three-building property overlooking Lake Carolyn is owned through a partnership between Hillwood Urban, Apollo Global, and Vanderbilt Office Properties.
Las Colinas is a 12,000-acre master-planned community in Irving about 20 minutes northwest of Dallas, founded by Ben H. Carpenter in 1973. At that time, it was his family’s ranch, Hackberry Creek Ranch, but the opening of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport prompted Las Colinas’ development.
“When Carpenter unveiled his vision for Las Colinas (Spanish for ‘the hills’) in 1973, nearly half of the area’s then 7,000 acres were devoted to recreation and educational facilities, with a 125-acre, man-made lake at its center (Lake Carolyn, named after Carpenter’s sister).”
The remainder of the property was used for residential purposes and business parks linked by public transportation. Today, Las Colinas features more than 50 lakes, as well as parks, trails, museums, and an entertainment hub.
