Bank of America to consolidate downtown space in Sundance Square

February 13,2017

By Sandra Baker

FORT WORTH

Bank of America will consolidate and expand its offices in downtown Fort Worth into space being vacated by D.R. Horton at one of the Sundance Square skycrapers.

The building will be renamed Bank of America Tower.

The bank will take three floors totaling about 68,000 square feet, and open a 4,000-square-foot retail location on the ground level of the office tower at 301 Commerce St. The retail location should open in 2018, Sundance Square management said.

Bank of America will move its Merrill Lynch operations from the adjoining Wells Fargo Tower, and shift its U.S. Trust, Business Banking, and Global Banking & Markets teams from the Bank of America building at 500 W. Seventh St.

The bank will take floors 18, 21 and 24 of the 38-story building, now known as D.R. Horton Tower. The move will take place in the second half of the year and involve about 180 employees, said Mike Pavell, the bank’s Fort Worth president.

D.R. Horton, the nation’s largest home builder, is scheduled to move 500 employees from Sundance Square in May to a new $20 million, 200,000-square-foot corporate headquarters in Arlington on the north side of Interstate 30, east of Collins Street and near Globe Life Park.

Horton has had its headquarters in Sundance Square since 2004, when it took over space previously leased by Pier 1 Imports. Pier 1 moved out after building a 20-story office building on the west edge of downtown Fort Worth. At one time, Horton leased about 160,000 square feet of space.

Pavell said the new location will give the bank room to “optimize the way our teams are working together. Fort Worth is a growth market for Bank of America as a whole.”

The bank plans to add employees, he said.

Bank of America, and its predecessor banks, have been on West Seventh Street since that building opened in 1961 for the First National Bank of Fort Worth. Bank of America was last NationsBank.

Johnny Campbell, Sundance Square president and CEO, said in a statement that the ground floor bank will extend to the sidewalk.