Tech’s office shrinkage is hitting Big D.
IBM is closing its 143,000-square-foot Innovation Studio in Coppell just a few years after unveiling a $12 million build-out.
Big Blue hired architect Gensler to renovate the building at 1177 South Belt Line Road in the summer of 2020, with plans to complete the work in early 2022, according to a state filing.
In closing the Innovation Studio, IBM is also laying off 59 employees, the Dallas Business Journal reported, citing a letter from the tech giant to the Texas Workforce Commission.
The news is just another example of big tech shrinking its office space since the pandemic, though the pullback has affected Austin more than Dallas-Fort Worth.
IBM inked a deal to occupy 50,000 square feet at Parmer Impact Labs at 13011 McCallen Pass in Austin this spring, but it’s shedding office space in other parts of the city.
The company occupies 800,000 square feet of office space between two buildings at the Domain and has plans to cut that space by more than half. It’s moving to a Hines development in the Domain, at 11901 North MoPac Expressway, in 2027. IBM will occupy 320,000 square feet of the 500,000-square-foot complex.
Hines Domain Northside will consist of two 14-story office buildings.
The downsizing trend has also affected Google, which is finally planning to move employees into the downtown “Sail Tower” by the end of the year. The building has sat empty since its delivery in 2022. Google signed the lease in 2019.
Though Google is leasing the whole 35-story, 804,000-square-foot building, it’s been shopping out the building’s top six floors on the sublease market. One taker is Digital Realty Trust, an Austin-based data center REIT. It’s planning an 11,200-square-foot executive suite with conference rooms, offices, workstations and a terrace-level upgrade on the 32nd floor.
Google’s lease expires in 2038.
The Sail Tower, at 601 West 2nd Street, traded hands in December, when developer Trammell Crow Company sold it to Atlanta-based Cousins Properties for $521.8 million.