By Patience Haggin
AT&T is planning to relocate its global headquarters from downtown Dallas to the nearby suburb of Plano, a move that would deal another powerful blow to the city's reeling central business district.
The firm plans to move into the former headquarters of Electronic Data Systems in Plano, about 23 miles north of its current base, according to a Monday morning all-staff email viewed by The Wall Street Journal. AT&T is aiming to partially occupy the space by the second half of 2028.
"We'll be transforming this site from the ground up -- demolishing the old buildings and designing a new, modern campus that's built for how we work best: together," Chief Executive John Stankey said in the email.
AT&T is the sixth-biggest employer in Dallas, with about 6,000 employees at its headquarters building. Its departure from downtown would continue a yearslong trend of companies decamping from the urban core amid a rise in crime and homelessness since the pandemic. Dallas's downtown has the second-highest office vacancy rate of any in the nation at 27.2%, behind only Seattle, according to real-estate data firm CoStar.
Stankey has pushed for employees to return to full-time in-office work, and the relocation is expected to be part of that effort. AT&T wants a low-rise, horizontal campus rather than its current high-rise, vertical downtown headquarters, and the company couldn't find a downtown land parcel large enough for it, said a person familiar with the matter.
AT&T will retain some operational and technical resources in downtown Dallas, where it has had its global headquarters since 2008, the person said,
The telecom firm has been consolidating its office space into fewer hubs nationwide. A prior office closure in St. Louis contributed to its downtown doom loop spiral. After AT&T moved out of St. Louis's biggest office tower, nearby retail and dining lost customers so they closed or moved.
AT&T's decision to move to Plano comes after more than a year of talks with the city government in which the company expressed concerns about downtown public safety, said Dallas City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert. The city increased its downtown police presence and homelessness services and saw a drop in crime.
"We have worked tirelessly, strategically, and collaboratively to keep the company in our city limits," Tolbert said Monday. "But ultimately, this was a decision that came down to AT&T's desire for a new horizontal location with significant acreage for development."
Plano's population of nearly 300,000 has been expanding at 1% to 2% a year, according to the city government. It is part of an area north of Dallas that has been one of America's fastest-growing regions for the past decade, where many AT&T employees live.
Money-management firm Fisher Investments announced in 2023 that it would move its headquarters to Plano from Washington state. Toyota moved its North American headquarters there in 2017.
"AT&T's investment reflects the strength of our community, our business-friendly environment, and our shared vision for the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex as a premier business destination," said Plano City Manager Mark Israelson.
Write to Patience Haggin at patience.haggin@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 05, 2026 12:16 ET (17:16 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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