The Boeing Company is adding more office space to its Dallas-Fort Worth footprint, which bodes well for an office sector that’s been hammered by remote-work trends and oversupply.
The aerospace manufacturer has added 50,000 square feet to its lease in Freeport Business Center I, at 8616 Freeport Parkway, in Irving’s Las Colinas mixed-use development, the Dallas Morning News reported.
Boeing occupies space in the building, although it’s unclear how much, for its Boeing Global Services supply chain employees. The increased occupancy will help the company grow its Supply Chain Center of Excellence in the region for its aftermarket business.
The 160,000-square-foot building was renovated in 2022, yielding upgraded lobby and common areas. Boeing’s expansion at the site underscores the flight-to-quality trend that’s emerged since the pandemic, in which companies favor updated, amenity-filled properties to overcome the remote-work movement and return employees to the office.
Boeing, which relocated its headquarters from Chicago to Arlington, Virginia, last year, has maintained a heavy presence in North Texas. The Legacy West mixed-use development in Plano has served as the headquarters for the company’s Global Services division since 2017, and it doubled its footprint at the site in 2018.
The Dallas area saw 2.5 million square feet of leasing activity in the first quarter, indicating that demand is starting to bounce back after dropping to historic lows during initial years of the pandemic.
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Dallas office vacancies stood at 26% in Q1
However, net absorption — the amount of space leased minus the amount of space vacated — stood at negative 1.1 million square feet through the first three months of the year. The overall office vacancy rate was 26.2 percent.
Despite an uptick in leasing activity, supply continues to outweigh demand. Over 5 million square feet of office space is under development in the Dallas area, with most of it concentrated in the Uptown-Oak Lawn and Grand Prairie-South Irving submarkets.
—Quinn Donoghue