https://www.dallasnews.com/business/real-estate/2021/08/02/wells-fargo-eyes-las-colinas-for-new-office-campus/
Is Wells Fargo, code-named ‘Project Falcon,’ preparing to land in Las Colinas?
The banking giant has been shopping North Texas for potential business site.
Irving’s city council is set to take a swing at one of the biggest real estate deals in the works in North Texas.
California banking giant Wells Fargo is looking to locate a major employment center in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The planned regional office would handle a variety of services for the nationwide banking firm and would be similar to JPMorgan Chase’s huge business campus in Plano, according to real estate brokers who’ve been tracking the deal.
Irving’s city council has scheduled a closed-door meeting Thursday for “economic development negotiations and legal advice” regarding “Project Falcon,” according to the agenda. Project Falcon is the code name for the Wells Fargo office search.
The bank has shopped the D-FW area for more than a year for 400,000 square feet of offices or more for the new operations, leasing agents who’ve made proposals on the deal say.
Now Wells Fargo has zeroed in on a site in Las Colinas’ Urban Center near the Irving Convention Center and the Toyota Music Factory entertainment center. The more than 10-acre development site is on the shore of Lake Carolyn and is one of the largest vacant tracts left in that area.
So far, Wells Fargo representatives aren’t talking about the pending office transaction, saying they “do not have anything to share at this time.”
But word of the transaction is widespread in local real estate circles.
Irving economic development officials declined to give any details on the project.
“Project Falcon is one of more than 100-plus active projects the Irving Economic Development Partnership continues to work to bring home, as well as retain and/or expand in Irving-Las Colinas,” Beth A. Bowman of the Irving Economic Development Partnership said in an email.
If Wells Fargo does land in Las Colinas, it would be the second big win for Irving. The city just attracted a huge new divisional office operation for Illinois-based Caterpillar.
Caterpillar Inc. — the international manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, engines, generators and locomotives — is consolidating workers from its Electric Power Division in Las Colinas.
Caterpillar is taking multiple floors of office space in the landmark Williams Square high-rise complex on O’Connor Boulevard near Carpenter Freeway.
The Wells Fargo office is one of the biggest pending real estate transactions in the D-FW area. The bank and Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs are just two of the financial firms that have been scouting the area for new office locations.
Office leasing activity in North Texas stalled last year with the onset of the pandemic. But property agents say that demand for new business space has rebounded this summer, and more companies are in the market.