RICHARDSON, Texas — The National Rifle Association (NRA) is not relocating to Richardson, an organization spokesperson said Monday.
The gun rights organization hopes to move its headquarters to Texas, but "it is not accurate that the NRA is relocating to Richardson," spokesperson Andrew Arulanandam said.
Speculation surfaced last month that the NRA was eyeing office space at the Richardson CityLine campus that is also home to State Farm. Steve Triolet, senior vice president of research and market forecasting operations for Partners Real Estate, told the Dallas Business Journal that NRA officials had toured the CityLine facility.
The prospect of the NRA moving to Richardson was brought up by several residents at the city's council meeting Monday night. But officials with the NRA and the city dispelled the notion of a headquarters relocation to Richardson.
“Texas remains a preferred choice for a future HQ. That said, the NRA Board of Directors has not made any decision – and the Association is not in contract negotiations with any property in Texas. It is not accurate that the NRA is relocating to Richardson," Arulanandam said.
Richardson city officials in a statement said they had "no further knowledge of its site selection process and the City has not been approached regarding relocation activities."
State Farm officials said they lease their CityLine office space and are not looking to sublease it.
The NRA filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in early 2021 to reorganize its business and said it plans to register as a nonprofit in Texas. The association has been a registered nonprofit in New York for more than 150 years, even though its physical headquarters is in northern Virginia.
In May 2021, Judge Harlin Hale of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Dallas dismissed the NRA’s petition for bankruptcy reorganization, but the association said afterward it is still exploring a headquarters move to Texas, where it has more than 400,000 members. The group has more than 5 million members nationwide.
The NRA has hired commercial real estate firm Colliers to lease and potentially purchase an office building in DFW for its new headquarters, according to a June 20 report by real estate information service CoStar.
“Texas heads the list” for the NRA’s potential headquarters relocation, an association spokesman told CoStar in an email, according to the June 20 article.
The Dallas Business Journal contributed to this report