By Mike Rosa, Senior Vice President, Economic Development
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
Beginning a new year, I reflect and report on our region’s results, trends and active corporate recruitment and expansion projects that have crossed into 2026.
Our position as the top metro economy in the U.S. and within Texas continued in 2025. We’ve led the nation in workforce growth this decade, with 450,000 net new jobs. DFW is also top in Texas, being the largest contributor to the state’s remarkable run of 13 — and soon hopefully 14 — consecutive years as the state with the most corporate locations and expansions.
2025 by the numbers
- 87 newsworthy corporate location and expansions
- 30 headquarter announcements
- 26 different regional cities with at least one ‘win’
Corporate decisions in our favor included:
- Astra Zeneca’s $400 million expansion in Coppell
- Paul Mitchell’s headquarters move from California to Wilmer
- Scotiabank selecting Dallas for its third major hub
- Wistron locating an assembly plant for Nvidia in Fort Worth
These four companies represent sectors in which our region’s brand as a location is elevated: life sciences, headquarters, financial services and advanced manufacturing.
Paving “Y’all Street”
2025 was the year of “Y’all Street” — a term now ubiquitous in everyday business conversation, finding its way into national and international business reports. Scotiabank, the Texas Stock Exchange, Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange expanding in Dallas are the latest boosts. The new Goldman Sachs campus is taking shape in Dallas, and Wells Fargo’s new Irving campus is impressive.
“Y’all Street” has been lit up with these recent deals and, very importantly, Texas’ leadership to make our business climate ideal. But really, it’s a longer street than you might realize, having been built over the past 25 years with significant corporate locations and expansions — many of which were supported by the Dallas Regional Chamber.
From 2000 to 2025, our region grew from 212,000 to 386,000 jobs in the financial services sector. Along the way, we surpassed Philadelphia, Chicago and Los Angeles, moving from the fifth to second-highest number of financial service jobs out of all U.S. metros — behind only New York.
It’s great branding, but it’s not the only feat we’re known for:
- Top U.S. metro for attracting talent — Lightcast
- Top U.S. metro for headquarters — Site Selection Magazine
- Top North American tech hub — Site Selection Magazine
Looking ahead
We’re busy. Here are a few top-line trends for 2026 based on our considerable interactions with location advisors and our active corporate location projects:
- Major office projects focus on Class A space in high-quality, amenity-rich, major metro environments — both urban and suburban — in order to attract, retain and return employees to the office.
- Major industrial projects — besides being rushed or paused by tariff policies — are searching for land or buildings with access to abundant power, water, talent and training capabilities.
- The DRC has seen an increase over the past couple of years in advanced manufacturing projects, financial services projects and life science projects, reflecting recent successes and our rising status in the eyes of companies and location advisors.
- The different community and real estate options available to companies in our region are a strength. Among our current active projects, several DFW cities are candidates. Companies are considering urban, suburban and edge locations based on talent needs, ready sites and buildings and, of course, other specific requirements.
Companies can find what they are looking for in our region. The DRC is also very fortunate to have expert local and state economic developers as partners to help companies locate, expand and start here — and extend our region’s remarkable run.
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