5 January 8-14, 2026 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents ▼ REAL ESTATE SERVICE OUTAGE DALLAS LEADERS ARE OPTIMISTIC AS AT&T BOUNCES TO PLANO. BY EMMA RUBY A T&T confirmed what has been whis- pered about for months on Monday morning: The technology giant is moving to Plano. Despite the news, local leaders are sticking to a message of optimism regarding the future of Dallas’ urban core. The Fortune 500 company moved its global headquarters to Dallas in 2008, but last year, it began scouting out land in the northern suburbs for a new campus. That land search came after a Downtown Dallas Inc. (DDI) study warned that concerns about public safety and homelessness were affecting the company’s interest in Big D’s urban core. Coming alongside threats by Saks Global to shutter Neiman Marcus’ flag- ship store downtown, city leaders scrambled to assure residents and businesses that the major players would be appeased into stay- ing in the city’s core. In a statement Monday morning, Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson suggested that those talks eventually fell through with AT&T due to the company’s interest in moving away from a skyscraper-style development. Ac- cording to an email sent by AT&T CEO John Stankey to employees on Monday, 54 acres of land along Legacy Drive in Plano will be the footprint of the company’s new headquarters. “As we worked to retain AT&T, it became clear that its current leaders preferred a large horizontal, suburban-style campus rather than the skyscrapers that define our city center,” Johnson said. Johnson, along with City Manager Kim- berly Tolbert and City Council member Jesse Moreno, whose district includes the downtown area, have stressed that AT&T’s move will “open the door for” new opportu- nities in the city’s urban core. In a statement, Moreno acknowledged that he is “disap- pointed” by AT&T’s decision. “I see opportunities for reinvigoration and new partnership in downtown Dallas. The city continues to attract strong interest and investment, including a growing num- ber of financial institutions choosing to relo- cate here,” Moreno said. “We are moving with urgency to ensure the core of Dallas re- mains competitive and welcoming to new headquarters and job creators.” Moreno, who chairs the council’s Eco- nomic Development Committee, also pointed out that despite the concerns identi- fied in the Downtown Dallas Inc. survey, strides have been made in improving the downtown environment. Dallas police data analyzed by WFAA revealed that violent in- cidents downtown had decreased by the end of November 2025 compared with the same period the previous year, thanks in part to an initiative aimed at increasing police pres- ence downtown and better addressing homelessness. City leaders also touted “the effective end” to downtown homelessness in 2025. (The claim means that individuals identified as sleeping downtown are priori- tized for services, not that you’ll never see another homeless person walking through the urban core.) Moreno did not comment on what he be- lieves AT&T’s downtown departure will mean for the future of City Hall. The City Council has launched an economic development analysis to determine whether the current Marilla Street structure is best serv- ing the downtown area, or whether it could present economic advantages for the city to rethink its urban core’s development. Even as leaders espouse optimism, Downtown Dal- las Inc. has estimated that an AT&T relocation would tank downtown property val- ues, costing around $2.7 billion overall, The Dallas Morning News reports. Stankey told the News that the company hopes to be partially moved into its new campus by the end of 2028, and that the new space will allow AT&T to “cost-effectively consolidate all Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex administrative space, including our three largest locations in Central Dallas, Plano, and Irving.” As of 2022, the downtown Dal- las office held 6,000 workers. In a post to social media, council member Cara Mendelsohn, whose district shares a border with Plano, remarked that the new campus will improve commuting times and parking availability for AT&T employees, “many” of whom live in Dallas’ northern dis- tricts. An internal AT&T report found that relocating to Plano will reduce commuting times for the majority of AT&T’s employees. Mendelsohn also offered her own per- spective on why the company might be con- sidering leaving Big D. “Each year at budget time, I share con- cerns [the city of Dallas] will lose residents and businesses because of our uncompeti- tively high property tax rate along with a few really bad policies and plans supported by a majority of the city council,” Men- delsohn wrote. “AT&T’s transition will be gradual, and the company will remain part of our city’s fabric in the years ahead,” Tolbert said. “Dallas is a city defined by its resilience and ability to attract new opportunities, and I look forward to working with Mayor John- son, the Dallas City Council, our city staff, our partners, and our business leaders as we continue to shape the future of our ur- ban core.” Taylor Adams The AT&T Discovery District in downtown Dallas.
