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Manhattan-based investment banking giant Goldman Sachs’ regional office campus to be built in the Uptown area of Dallas may have been downsized by about 10%, but the number of jobs to be based out of the building remains unchanged, according to the head of the firm’s local office.
Construction on the $500 million project is set to start later this year and migration of employees into the building is scheduled for 2027, according to Aasem Khalil, partner at Goldman Sachs and head of the Dallas Office.
The building has been downsized in the design process to about 815,000 square from its originally planned 900,000 square feet by finding more efficient ways to use space through flexible seating and other means, Khalil said.
The project ranks among the largest office developments Dallas has added in decades. It will become the regional base of operations for New York-based Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), housing about 5,000 employees when it opens in roughly three years.
The building is horizontal with large floor plates to keep it at a mid-rise height, with the north wing topping out at around 230 feet and 12 floors, Khalil said.
Scaling back the building’s size does not signal tempered expectations for hiring or growth in Dallas, Khalil said.
“The building is going to be the most energy efficient and flexible workspace in the Goldman Sachs ecosystem, so the number of employees working in Dallas will continue to trend up,” he said. “We are sizing the building appropriately for the size of our workforce and the expected growth that we're going to have in this region. We have a bunch of different design schematics and other considerations, but at the end of the day, we're settling on a size of building that is appropriate and will allow us to continue to grow.”
The three-acre Goldman Sachs campus, developed by Hillwood Urban, is the first phase of a larger 11-acre mixed-use office and residential development spearheaded by Dallas-based Hunt Realty Investments.
The financial firm plans to consolidate workers currently located in North Texas plus create future jobs in the offices. The new office will include primarily people from Goldman’s office in Trammell Crow Center, as well as some from the firm’s Irving office and a portion from the firm’s Richardson office.
The jobs Goldman Sachs creates coinciding with the move to the new campus will be across the board positions “from the front of the house to the back of the house,” Khalil said.
"What we've built over time here is every function that Goldman Sachs has, generally speaking, is represented in Dallas," he said. "That could be investment bankers like myself who are engaging corporate clients routinely. It could be our sales and training folks. It could be people in our private wealth business, our asset management business, operations, risk, legal, so it's a pretty broad swath.”
The Dallas City Council passed a resolution in June packed with incentives to lure Goldman Sachs’ regional campus.
To tap the deal, the investment banking giant is expected to retain or create a minimum of 5,000 full-time jobs with an average base salary of $90,000 at the new campus by the end of 2028.
Approximately $18 million in incentives, consisting of property tax abatements and grants from the city, will filter to Goldman and developer Hunt Realty and its affiliates as part of the incentives deal.
As part of the agreement with the city, Goldman must execute a lease of at least 800,000 square feet on or before December 31, 2027, with a minimum 15-year lease term. At least 35% of the employees are expected to be residents of Dallas.
Amenities for Goldman Sachs’ new campus include a café and marketplace dining, conferencing and collaboration spaces, a fitness center, underground parking, and access to a variety of outdoor gardens and terraces.
The campus will be near key attractions like the Perot Museum and American Airlines Center and the site will serve as a green connector of the Katy Trail and Klyde Warren Park.
Goldman Sachs’ Dallas campus is expected to be larger than all of the Wall Street investment firm's U.S. hubs. It will be the firm’s second-biggest site in the country, trailing only its headquarters location in Manhattan, Khalil said.
With the high number and broad range of Goldman Sachs jobs already in DFW, plus undeveloped land surrounding the Goldman development site, some in the DFW business and government community have speculated that the firm could be positioning for a headquarters relocation in the future.
Khalil said the firm is not considering moving its headquarters from the Big Apple to Big D.
“We are committed to New York being our global headquarters,” he said. “We’re proud that we have every function of the firm represented in Dallas. It’s the only city and the only office in our ecosystem in the U.S. that has every function represented, but there’s no consideration of moving our headquarters here.”
"Project Meadow," as the Goldman Sachs project is referred to in city planning documents, is the first piece of a comprehensive plan for the North End District that flanks the Perot Museum.
The Goldman Sachs office building is sited on three acres on the southeast corner of the North End project and will be completed along with a 1.5-acre park. Parking will be completely underground. A paseo will connect a public park to North Field Street.