Another downtown Dallas exit: Fifth Third leaving Comerica Tower, moving north
Posted by lithdoc@reddit | Dallas | View on Reddit | 18 comments
Posted by lithdoc@reddit | Dallas | View on Reddit | 18 comments
dallasuptowner@reddit
Before everyone blames downtown for this, their current office in Comerica tower is 200,000 sqft and houses 175 employees.
Not a typo, they have a literal house worth of space for every employee in their current office. They are downsizing to 63,000 sqft designed to office twice the number of employees.
They needed to move regardless of whatever people think about the state of downtown.
Crying_in_99Ranch@reddit
Any reason they couldn't just downsize their current office space?
dallasuptowner@reddit
Incredibly expensive, they would effectively be building a new office from scratch, which they are doing in a nicer building.
GreenHorror4252@reddit
Why can't they just rent out the part they don't need to another company?
dallasuptowner@reddit
That's not how large offices are designed, particularly for things like banking offices.
GreenHorror4252@reddit
True, but it shouldn't be that hard to modify the space. Certainly much easier and cheaper than moving the whole office.
dallasuptowner@reddit
It would be incredibly hard to modify the space, it's designed for hundreds and hundreds more employees than they have, departments that don't exist, infrastructure that they don't need. They can't just like wall off a quarter of the office space, it wouldn't be functional at all.
komark-@reddit
The 200,000 sqft of real estate would have been split among several floors. At least 5, probably 6 total floors.
They could have just vacated a couple floors - no need to wall off a section of the space. The new space won’t be ready until 2028 anyway, so there would be ample time to make any remodeling changes needed.
The decision to move out probably is a combination of several reasons:
- the recent merger of Comerica and Fifth Third
- big money is in real estate now - they saw an opportunity to convert a lot of office space that was underutilized into residential / hotel units
- with the new merger probably just want a fresh start
- downtown is expensive, and the new location also allows them to run a full bank instead of only being a corporate office
Crying_in_99Ranch@reddit
Ah yeah that makes sense. Shame
Reluctantziti@reddit
Hey this context really makes it hard to propagandize downtown as a mad max-esque wasteland, can you not? /s
mysteriomagicball@reddit
What’s so special about Plano?!
Mr3iron@reddit
Time for condos?
TommyFro@reddit
Wouldn’t surprise me. I can’t find any floor plans, but I know they had begun talking about transitioning part of the building to condos in 2024. Likely something similar to Energy Plaza, residential above office space.
No_Host_8024@reddit
It might work on the very top floors, but the floor plate is probably too big to economically convert on most of it.
WhodyBootyWhat@reddit
Little by little Uptown is becoming the new Downtown.
totallynotfromennis@reddit
Downtown Dallas boosters had a hard past few years
ThatSandwich@reddit
Why would Fifth Third merge with the Comerica just to move out of the Comerica building?
This makes no sense to me.
GalvanizedParabola@reddit
They didn't buy Comercia for a building... They bought Comercia for their clients and footprint in Texas. Plus from what I've heard that building is in rough shape and desperate need of renovation.