Dallas Secures $19M Incentives for Morgan Stanley Move

Dallas City Council greenlit an $18.5 million incentive package Wednesday for Morgan Stanley’s potential Y’all Street move.

The financial services and investment bank will spend a little time in Downtown Dallas before moving to Uptown in 2031. The package coincides with Morgan Stanley earmarking $700 million for its new digs at 2401 McKinney Avenue, which will bring hundreds of employees to Dallas’s burgeoning financial hub.

Morgan Stanley has yet to formally communicate their plans, but documents filed with the city indicate the timeline, according to the Dallas Business Journal. Morgan Stanley can still opt out and head to Alpharetta, Georgia, where the firm is that Atlanta suburb’s largest employer, according to the publication.

In the years before 2031, if Morgan Stanley moves forward with their Dallas plans, they’ll occupy 255,000 square feet at downtown’s Fountain Place. When they move into 2401 McKinney Avenue, they could employ around 3,800 in 700,000 square feet of space.

Trammell Crow Company, the Uptown building’s developer, is reportedly chipping in $650 million for the offices, bringing the total to around $1.3 billion. The outlet reported that construction on the new building is set to begin in fall 2026, a Truluck’s seafood restaurant and vacant Gold’s Gym are expected to be razed to make way for the bank.

Temporarily occupying space in Downtown Dallas will somewhat bolster the struggling area. The once-center of the city has been bleeding tenants, including its flagship stores and sports teams in 2026. The new additions will bleed off a bit of steam, but as long as there’s no new, permanent tenants, Downtown Dallas will remain in the pressure cooker. When AT&T leaves for Plano, they’ll be vacating 6 percent of all office space in the downtown area — about 2 million square feet.

Uptown is experiencing a boom in downtown’s shadow. The Y’all Street financial district is welcoming a deluge of new businesses, banks and the Texas stock exchange in the near future. Morgan Stanley moving in would solidify the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex as one of the largest financial hubs in the nation.

— Hunter Cooke