Morgan Stanley Bets $684M on an Uptown Dallas Hub as Wall Street Piles In

Morgan Stanley's $684M Uptown commitment deepens a Wall Street migration reshaping Dallas office.

September 30, 2026

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Good morning. Wall Street keeps planting purpose-built flags in Uptown Dallas. Morgan Stanley's $684 million commitment lands less than a mile from Goldman Sachs, a clear tell about where finance jobs are heading.

🎙️ This Week on No Cap: DWS's Todd Henderson on why real estate is becoming the AI immunity trade. (Thanks to our sponsor, Warespace)

The ice cream shop that makes money when it's cold

Morgan Stanley Bets 4M on an Uptown Dallas Hub as Wall Street Piles In

28 Wishes sells ice cream in Los Angeles. Below 70°F, sales fall about 20%. The weather is out of their hands. Rent isn't.

So the owners started putting about $20 a day into Kalshi weather markets, taking the cold side. The days that keep customers away now pay something back.

This is hedging. Big companies have done it for decades, buying protection against bad weather, fuel spikes and rising rates. It used to take a broker, a trading desk, and an order size no corner shop could meet.

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See how other owners are doing it at Kalshi.com/hedging

Market Snapshot

Top Market

By Transaction Volume

Houston — $11.3M

Properties Sold

All Asset Types

Transaction Volume

Sales Activity

$27.1M

Top Office Submarket

Avg Starting Rent

South Main (Houston)

$94.53 / SF

Texas Office Rent

Avg Effective

$36.62 / SF

Office Rent Growth

YoY Change

-16.5%

*Office metrics courtesy of CompStak; data from 6/1/26 – 8/31/26. Sales metrics courtesy of Actovia; Texas properties reported sold during the week of 7/21/26 – 7/27/26.

Finance flight

A $684M Vote of Confidence in Dallas Office

2401 McKinney | Photo courtesy of The Skyscraper Center

Morgan Stanley is committing $684 million to a new regional hub in Uptown Dallas, the latest Wall Street name to build bespoke space in North Texas.

Where the money goes: About $587 million funds a planned 700,000 SF Uptown tower at 2401 McKinney Ave., which Trammell Crow will build for roughly $650 million and Morgan Stanley will lease for 16 years starting in 2031.

The bridge downtown: The firm invests another $97 million in a temporary 255,000 SF lease at Fountain Place, where 1,500 employees will work through 2031 while the tower rises.

The headcount: Morgan Stanley aims to employ 3,800 at the campus by the end of 2035, citing Texas talent and a growing financial-services base.

Public sweeteners: Dallas approved an $18.5 million incentive package in June, and the state added a $43.8 million Texas Enterprise Fund grant.

The cluster effect: The site sits less than a mile from Goldman Sachs' $709 million campus due in 2028, in a submarket that commands the region's top rents and nearly 94% of North Texas office development.

➥ THE TAKEAWAY

Trophy pulls away: Two Wall Street giants building purpose-built Uptown towers signal DFW's finance cluster is drawing headquarters-caliber demand, not back-office overflow. The gap between new Uptown product and aging downtown stock only widens from here.

Around Texas

➥ Austin metro housing permits fell 14% through August as apartment filings plunged 36%, a pullback that could hand landlords pricing power once today’s oversupply leases up.

➥ The developers behind a $409M revamp of Bank of America Plaza won a 10-month extension to buy Dallas’ tallest tower, keeping more than $100M in city incentives alive.

➥ Hunt Sports and partners will build a 290-room hotel and 3,000-person music venue beside Frisco’s Toyota Stadium, part of a billion-dollar-plus district breaking ground in 2027.

➥ Dallas hotel demand has moved past its World Cup bump, with a strong August hinting the market’s momentum can outlast a one-off event.

➥ Tides Equities’ founders satisfied Starwood’s $50M judgments and settled other suits, but Tides Equities now controls just 11 DFW properties, down from 45 in 2022.

➥ Freehill broke ground on Fairbanks Landing, a four-building, 1.64M SF Northwest Houston industrial park, with its first phase pre-leased to Power Electronics.

Follow the Money

MULTIFAMILYHOUSTON An Eaton Vance fund acquired two 2021-built Greater Heights communities totaling 436 units from Greystar, deepening its Class A Houston portfolio.

OFFICEAUSTIN An Aquila-led JV bought the 268,000 SF 515 Congress tower downtown, whose county appraisal fell to $117M from $150M in 2022.

RETAILFORT WORTH EDENS purchased the 179,376 SF, Sprouts-anchored Village at Camp Bowie from Dunhill Partners on the city’s southwest side.

NET LEASETEXAS Getty Realty closed a $260.9M sale-leaseback on 41 Refuel convenience stores across four states, seven of them in Texas.

DATA CENTERLANCASTER QTS filed plans for a $290M, 363,500 SF Dallas-area data center, the week’s largest North Texas construction permit.

INDUSTRIALDFW Scannell sold two Denton and Haltom City distribution centers totaling more than 1M SF to NorthPoint and Washington Capital in separate deals.