Downtown Dallas has historically been conducive to major business and corporations: AT&T, Texas Instruments and Southwest Airlines, for example, are all headquartered in Dallas’ central business district.
However, in January 2026, downtown Dallas’ largest company in terms of revenue, AT&T, announced that they would be moving their headquarters from downtown Dallas to Plano, Texas by 2028.
This simple, 20-mile move from the central business district to the suburbs reflects a larger trend in Dallas’ downtown – majors companies are moving out and leaving behind large, empty office buildings. According to a December 2025 article by the Wall Street Journal, downtown Dallas’ vacancy rate (the percentage of unoccupied offices) reached a rate of 27.2 percent, meaning that over a quarter of offices in downtown Dallas are empty. The future loss of AT&T headquarters will further exacerbate the vacancy issues.
“AT&T is a major employer in downtown Dallas, so losing them will be difficult to replace,” English and History teacher Dr. John Perryman said. “It creates vacant office space and removes the 5,000 or so AT&T employees from the daily economy of downtown, from buying lunches to paying for parking or DART.”
In terms of vacant office space, AT&T’s 37-story Whitacre Tower will be left vacant, and some other company will have to fill the gap that AT&T will leave. In addition, vacancy not only reduces the liveliness of Dallas’ central business district but also signals that maybe Dallas is losing desirability, whether it be affordability or city infrastructure.
However, Dallas laws and income taxes have been extremely attractive to businesses, a fact that keeps Dallas relevant in the business world.
“Historically, probably the biggest factor (in moving to Dallas) has been the absence of a state level individual or corporate income tax,” Perryman said. “Texas is a right-to-work state, which businesses find attractive. Many cities have offered aggressive tax breaks to attract companies, too.”
Even though many companies are moving out of downtown Dallas, the entire DFW Metropolitan Area is still a major hub for business.
Some prominent companies outside of downtown Dallas include McKesson in Irving, which is actually above AT&T in the Fortune 500 rankings. Other companies include Caterpillar, and American Airlines Group. So, while downtown Dallas may be losing a little bit of desirability among major companies, the metroplex as a whole is still flourishing. In fact, a major reason for students and parents to move to Dallas is its opportunities for jobs and in the metroplex.
“Dallas is really good for business and job opportunities: my parents moved to Dallas because my dad got a job offer at SMU,” sophomore Adam Zhang, who moved to Dallas from Phoenix in 2021, said. “And also because Dallas just has better education opportunities.”
However, despite the business opportunities in the Dallas area, the city itself isn’t necessarily seen as a bustling city as much as Chicago or New York is. And this combination also attracts families who are looking for a lifestyle away from the busy, crowded cityscapes. In fact, junior Rahul Subramaniam’s family came to Dallas for this exact reason.
“I used to live in China and Korea, and it was all basically because of my dad’s job,” Subramaniam said. “And after we had just left China, we went to the Bay Area for three years, and then we moved here. My brother was just starting his freshman year of high school, and my parents just wanted a more chill life, a more suburban atmosphere to raise their children.”
DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit), another major aspect of Dallas and its desirability as a city, has also recently received a portion of its sales tax revenue back through a new six-year agreement. In terms of revenue, DART generated around $850 million during 2024 through sales tax alone.
DART also supports around 220,000 riders every day, and from 2022 to 2024, DART has created 9,422 new jobs. However, from January through October 2025, DART saw a 20 percent decrease in ridership compared to the same time period of 2019; DART also seems to be losing popularity in the city, either due to fewer company employees or due to funding cuts.
Either way, despite slowing growth in DART and companies vacating the downtown Dallas area, the city as a whole still continues to grow. In fact, AT&T moving to Plano will likely stimulate growth in the more suburban areas of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. While Dallas’ central business district may be stagnating, the rest of the city is experiencing steady growth.
