Goldman Sachs is spending about $700 million on a new Dallas campus, an 800,000 square foot project scheduled to open in 2028 with room for more than 5,000 workers.
The building has become the physical marker of something the industry has been doing quietly for years. Dallas is already Goldman's second largest office in the United States, behind only its Manhattan headquarters, and the firm has been in the city since 1968.
Not just Goldman
JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and BlackRock have all expanded in Texas. Both established exchanges have followed: the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq have each opened Texas outposts.
The Texas Stock Exchange began trading in July, backed by investors including Goldman Sachs and BlackRock, aiming at the business the two incumbents have held between them.
Local officials and executives have taken to calling the cluster Y'all Street.
What is pulling firms here
The reasons given are largely structural rather than sentimental. Texas has no state income tax and a lighter regulatory posture. It has also passed laws making it harder to sustain shareholder lawsuits, and others designed to attract companies incorporated in Delaware to reincorporate in Texas.
Underneath that is customer movement. As large companies and wealthy households relocate to Texas, the banking relationships follow, and firms gain a reason to place senior bankers here rather than fly them in.
