By Candace Carlisle
Staff Writer | Dallas Business Journal
State Farm Insurance plans to expand its Dallas-Fort Worth regional hub by adding another office tower to its operations, bringing its new development footprint to 2 million square feet of office space spanning four office towers.
The Bloomington, Ill.-based insurance company is anchoring CityLine, a $1.5 billion transit-oriented, mixed-use development in north Richardson, near Plano.
The new 12-story, 500,000 tower office tower will be situated above a five-level parking structure and about 30,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor at the northeast corner of State Street and Plano Road, directly across the street from the three towers currently under construction.
Dallas-based developer KDC plans to begin the fourth tower this summer, with completion scheduled for early 2017.
Last year, KDC began work on the three buildings, totaling 1.5 million square feet of office space. It is the largest lease deal in North Texas history. The plans in Dallas are similar to those in Phoenix, where State Farm unveiled plans for a $600 million regional hub.
The other three Class A buildings include a 13-story building, a 15-story building and a 21-story building. Each building sits on a five-level parking structure with ground floor retail space.
State Farm plans to move into the CityLine regional offices beginning later this year, with moves continuing throughout 2015.
The insurance company has been rapidly expanding and hiring employees in North Texas. Earlier this month, State Farm held a job fair hoping to hire 700 employees. The company interviewed 1,300 people at the fair and took resumes from several hundred more, said a spokesman with the company Friday.
Richardson Mayor Laura Maczka said Richardson works hard to be a business-friendly community and its access to a highly skilled labor force and its easy access to the rest of the Metroplex was one reason behind State Farm's decision to expand its operations there.
Along with State Farm, CityLine's first phase will include a 150-room hotel, 532 new apartments, a 17,000-square-foot wellness and fitness facility, a 41,000-square-foot boutique office building and a 3.5-acre park that connects to a trail system that runs as far south as White Rock Lake.
At full build-out, the $1.5 billion project will include 6 million square feet of office space, two hotels, 3,925 apartments, 300,000 square feet of grocery, restaurant, entertainment and retail space, as well as three parks.
Randy Cooper and Craig Wilson of Cassidy Turley represented State Farm in its expansion. Corgan is the project architect, and Kimley-Horn and Associates is the civil engineer. JP Morgan Chase is financing the project.