TRD Data: DFW’s biggest office leases of 2023

Bank of America’s move to KDC and Pacific Elm Properties’ parkside development was biggest new lease this year

KDC, Pacific Elm Land Biggest Office Lease in 2023

Bank of America’s Dallas' Jennifer Chandler with Parkside Uptown tower (Dallas Regional Chamber, KDC, Getty)

TRD Staff

Dec 22, 2023, 9:00 AM

Watch out, Dallas! Fossil had the biggest office lease in Dallas-Fort Worth this year, renewing its 255,000-square-foot headquarters lease at 901 South Central Expressway in Richardson.

The designer and manufacturer of watches and accessories has about 7,500 employees, producing creative services for brands it owns: Fossil, Michele, Relic, Skagen and Zodiac, as well as brands it has license to, like Armani Exchange and DKNY.

Terms of the renewal weren’t made public. The owner has the same address as Liberty Bankers insurance, a subsidiary of Heritage Guaranty Holdings, according to Dallas Central Appraisal District records.

TRD Data, compiled via Newmark, put Fossil on top of the heap of Dallas/Fort Worth office leases of 2023. It’s also the only lease in Richardson, a suburb north of Dallas, that made our list.

The DFW office market wasn’t as strong this year as it has been in the past, but it remains an attractive destination for corporate headquarters, according to JLL. Frontier Communications plans to move its headquarters from Norwalk, Connecticut to Uptown, where it will build a 95,000-square-foot building it calls the GigaHub. Appliance maker Thermomix is also moving its HQ to Dallas, from Thousand Oaks, California, although its office plans haven’t been revealed.

Office vacancy in the market sits at about 25 percent, according to JLL. It had about 1.2 million square feet of negative absorption in the third quarter, largely because of ExxonMobil’s exit from Las Colinas; the energy giant moved to Houston.

The DFW market’s average asking rent is close to $34 per square foot.

The rest of the Metroplex’s largest office tenants signed in Uptown, Irving and Fort Worth.

Bank of America
1919 Woodall Rogers Freeway in Dallas
238,000 square feet

Klyde Warren Park is the toast of the town when it comes to office locations, and it’s a hotspot for the financial sector. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas has sat at 2200 Pearl Expressway since 1992, decades before the freeway deck park opened in 2012.

By the end of this decade, office real estate around the park will be home to Chase Bank, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America.

The Parkside Uptown, now Bank of America Parkside, is in development by Dallas-based firms KDC and Pacific Elm Properties. Bank of America will take a little under half of the 500,000-square-foot, 30-story building.

Bank of America will exit its namesake downtown Dallas tower, known for its green lighting that’s visible in the skyline. The bank has downsized its lease there multiple times since the building opened in 1985.

The parkside building is expected to be complete in 2027. Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, Corgan and OJB Landscape Architecture are leading the design.

Paycom
4609 Regent Boulevard in Irving
104,000 square feet

In 2022, Paycom opened an amenity-filled, 150,000-square-foot campus in Grapevine. Now, it’s adding to that campus with a 118,000-square-foot building that is expected to cost $27 million and open in 2025.

Despite its already significant office holdings, the Oklahoma-based payroll and HR software firm took two-thirds of this 154,000-square-foot building off the market with a sublease. The building’s owner has the same downtown Dallas address as Hall Group, according to DCAD.

Texas Air Systems
8081 Royal Ridge Parkway in Irving
104,000 square feet

Texans can’t live without air conditioning, and one of the largest AC companies in Texas took this whole-building lease in Las Colinas in June. The company left a smaller lease in Irving, the Dallas Morning News reported.

The building owner has the same address as California-based Menlo Equities, according to DCAD.

HF Sinclair Corporation
2323 Victory Avenue in Dallas
91,000 square feet

The energy company with the green brontosaurus is leaving its headquarters at 2828 Harwood Street for One Victory Park Tower.

Hines developed the 20-story building in 2010. The owner, Clarion Partners, is building a 10,000-square-foot food hall on the ground floor, which is expected to open early next year.

Javelin Energy Partners
6333 North State Highway 161 in Irving
83,000 square feet

This subsidiary of Crescent Energy plans to move its headquarters to this building, near Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Building owner Piedmont Office Realty Trust recently renovated it.

Javelin is moving from the Towers at Williams Square, at 5205 North O’Connor Boulevard in Irving, the Dallas Morning News reported.

Burns & McDonnell
777 Main Street in Fort Worth
71,000 square feet

This engineering and construction firm put Funky Town on our list with its lease in downtown Fort Worth’s third-tallest building.

The 40-story building, which is home to the Petroleum Club of Fort Worth, was constructed in 1983 and renovated in 2021, according to a Transwestern brochure. The building owner has the same Atlanta address as the Brookdale Group, according to the Tarrant Appraisal District.

—Rachel Stone

Dallas