Texas A&M Beefs up Budget With $65M for Fort Worth Expansion

Texas A&M University upped its investment in Fort Worth by $65 million.

The university system approved a 40 percent budget increase, from $85 million to $150 million, during a meeting with the school’s board of regents, the Dallas Business Journal reported.

“If you think about it, that’s sort of the Texas way: Go bigger and better whenever you get the chance,” Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp told the outlet.

The increase will go toward construction of Texas A&M-Fort Worth’s Law & Education Building, with construction start scheduled for June. The decision to increase the budget came in response to rising construction costs and feedback from the community, Sharp said.

The nine-story Law & Education Building will rise on several blocks adjacent to the existing Texas A&M School of Law, near the Fort Worth Water Gardens in downtown.

That building is funded mostly through bonds backed by A&M’s permanent university fund.

Two other structures in the planned three-building campus — a research and innovation building and a conference center and office building — will be financed through city-issued bonds secured by leases to the university and the private sector.

Private businesses will be able to rent space for academic programs, workforce training and collaborative research, and Sharp says there is already demand for all of the space.

“We’re here to serve the industry and the people of Tarrant County with whatever research and educational facilities they need,” Sharp told the outlet.

The old law school, which is set to be demolished once the new one is complete, will be replaced with the “Gateway Building,” the office and conference center that will act as an entryway to the complex.

Stantec has been selected as the architect of record and will also provide lab planning services for the project. Pelli Clarke & Partners has been tapped as the design architect. Turner Construction Company, Carcon Industries, Source Building Group and Dikita Enterprises comprise the construction team for the development.

Construction is expected to wrap in 2025.

— Victoria Pruitt