When the Boeing Co. picked Chicago over Dallas and Denver for its new corporate headquarters back in 2001, it rattled Big D into a period of self-reflection that, some say, helped jump-start new development in the central business district area. The wife of Boeing’s then-CEO, you might recall, was said to have considered Dallas’ downtown a cultural backwater compared to the Windy City’s. So, North Texas got a kind of revenge Tuesday, when the aerospace giant announced it had selected a site here for the headquarters of its new Global Services business unit. The new division will be in Plano, not Dallas—but, hey, it’s close enough.
Boeing’s new unit, which will be the company’s third major business division when it becomes operational in July, will occupy 18,000 square feet on a top floor at the 5905 Legacy Drive building in Legacy West, a mixed-use development in West Plano. President and CEO Stanley A. Deal leads the Global Services unit, which was formed in November from the customer services groups within Boeing’s existing defense, space, and commercial sectors to “provide agile, cost-competitive services to commercial and defense customers worldwide,” the company said.
About 50 people, including Deal, several of his leadership team members, and some support staff, will work in the leased space, which will serve as a central business hub for about 20,000 employees worldwide. Boeing will join other major tenants in the $3 billion Legacy West project including Toyota North America, FedEx Office, JPMorgan Chase, Liberty Mutual, Ryan LLC, and SAP America. In a statement, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said, “Texas continues to be a global powerhouse in business expansion and relocation because of our economic policies that encourage industry leaders, like Boeing, to expand their operations here.” Boeing already has a presence in North Texas with its Aviall and Jeppesen companies.
