Dallas-Fort Worth business news: Leasing jumps 13%

Key points:

• • DFW office leasing jumped 13% in H1 2026, per Savills USA research.
• • Public Storage relocated its HQ from California to Frisco’s Hall Park.
• • Preston Center vacancy fell to 6.8% as landlords reject sub-$90/sf deals.

July 2026 — North Texas’ office market has posted its healthiest half-year performance in years, and the shift is dominating Dallas-Fort Worth business news this summer: leasing activity across the region climbed nearly 13% from a year ago, vacancy fell to its lowest mark in years, and a S&P 500 storage giant has officially relocated its headquarters to Frisco.

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The numbers come from Savills USA research reported in a D Magazine midyear analysis. Tenants signed 4.0 million square feet of office leases across North Texas in the second quarter of 2026 alone, up nearly 24% from the same period last year. This steady momentum pushed regional availability down to 26%. Landlords pushed asking rents to an average of $34.44 per square foot through the second quarter, up from $32.89 a year earlier. Sublease space — the unused space companies listed during the remote-work retreat — has also shrunk by 2.5 million square feet over the past year, a sign employers are filling rather than shedding space.

For a metro that has spent years atop national rankings for corporate relocations and job growth, the data explains why Dallas-Fort Worth business news keeps circling back to commercial real estate. National office markets are still fighting elevated vacancy years after 2020; Dallas-Fort Worth’s ability to absorb space at this pace stands out because it is happening without one blockbuster headquarters announcement carrying the whole market. Instead, gains are broad-based, coming from financial services, healthcare, technology, and legal tenants renewing leases and trading up into newer buildings.

Flight to quality

That trade-up is most visible in Preston Center, which captured a fifth of the 20 largest office leases signed in North Texas during the first half of 2026. Jones Day, Fifth Third Bank, and Arctos Partners joined Welltower in signing a combined total of more than 200,000 square feet of premier space, with Welltower’s specific expansion accounting for 140,519 square feet. Fifth Third is establishing its new Texas regional headquarters at Preston Center (8300 Douglas), though because the premier development is currently under construction, the bank will utilize temporary offices at NorthPark until its new permanent space is ready for move-in in the fourth quarter of 2028.

Preston Center’s availability rate has fallen to just 6.8%, prompting landlords to demand premium, record-setting rates for class-A space. While uptown remains the region’s overall priciest submarket — with average rents pushing past $60 per square foot — high-end, brand-new construction in select pockets of Preston Center is commanding even steeper pricing, underscoring how concentrated the market’s momentum remains.

Other large leases this year include Geico’s new office of more than 205,000 square feet in Richardson, Oncor’s renewal of nearly 177,000 square feet in the Fort Worth central business district, and a 172,089-square-foot full-building lease in Las Colinas signed by Mercury One to house its headquarters and its American Journey Experience museum.

Relocation magnet

The clearest evidence of Dallas-Fort Worth’s pull on outside companies is Public Storage’s decision to officially relocate its corporate headquarters from California into a 123,000-square-foot office at Hall Park in Frisco. The relocation lands the self-storage giant in the North Dallas Corridor, one of two submarkets, along with Las Colinas, that each accounted for four of the region’s 20 largest leases this year. It is the kind of move that has defined Dallas-Fort Worth business news for much of the past decade, as companies cite lower costs and a friendlier regulatory climate for relocating out of higher-tax states.

Not every submarket is sharing in the recovery. Downtown Dallas’ availability rate sits at 33.9%, the fourth-highest in North Texas, trailing only the North Fort Worth, Northeast Fort Worth, and Central Expressway submarkets. Even there, momentum is building: the Trammell Crow Center has taken nearly 145,000 square feet off the market over the past eight months, though no single lease topped 28,000 square feet.

The biggest downtown wild card is Morgan Stanley, which is looking to sign a temporary, 255,000-square-foot bridge lease at Fountain Place. While the interim lease would provide a massive, immediate boost to Downtown, the firm’s ultimate goal is to build a permanent, $1.3 billion, 708,000-square-foot regional hub in uptown on McKinney Avenue by 2031, showcasing that the “flight to quality” migration toward uptown remains the dominant long-term trend.

The pattern that emerges is a market recovering unevenly but unmistakably: older office stock still struggles to find tenants, while newer buildings in high-demand corridors are tightening fast enough to give landlords real pricing power for the first time since before the pandemic.

Want more? Read the Invest: Dallas-Fort Worth report.