Texas A&M is engineering Fort Worth for the next century with new law school and research center – Dallas Business Journal – The Business Journals

When Fort Worth magnate John Goff stood before the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents meeting in May, he called the upcoming law school and research center expansion the single most impactful thing to happen to the city that will occur this century.
While the project is still in its early stages, it seems Goff’s words are already ringing true. Fort Worth’s industry titans, from Alcon to Lockheed Martin, are already discussing with the Texas A&M University System how to use the sweeping R&D and workforce implications the expansion promises to deliver.
Civic and business leaders agree that the Texas A&M University System’s downtown Fort Worth expansion will redefine the city.
The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents rubber-stamped the project during a meeting in May, allocating $85 million for a Law and Education Building and another $85 million for a Research and Innovation Center in Fort Worth. The campus will be built on several blocks adjacent to the existing Texas A&M University School of Law building, which is also scheduled to be replaced in 2024.
The law school will be replaced with a “Gateway Building,” which will act as a front door to the complex and house additional space for the law school, administrative offices and other uses.
The project originated from a meeting almost two years ago between the Texas A&M University System leadership, Goff and former Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price. During the regent’s meeting, Price said the pitch to expand A&M’s presence in Fort Worth took John Sharp by surprise.
“At 8:30 in the morning, he said, ‘Do you want to dip?’” Price said. “I said, ‘No, but if we get this done, I want to drink a tequila.’”
The proposed expansion made a lot of sense for various reasons, said Sharp, Texas A&M University System Chancellor. Fort Worth fits A&M’s brand, and the city needs a Tier 1 research presence.
The upcoming expansion will immediately impact Fort Worth and have long-term ripple effects that are hard to quantify. In the short term, the project will create many jobs and reshape the downtown area, adding foot traffic for retail and other businesses.
Upon completion, the expansion will add to the city’s skilled workforce in ways that go beyond an increased number of lawyers. The research capabilities of the expansion have broad implications for not just Fort Worth businesses but others across the state.
Less tangible are the impacts the expansion will have on real estate, economic development and the fabric of Fort Worth itself. A Tier 1-university presence boosts Fort Worth’s profile as a relocation destination, and industry leaders have been excited about the expansion since it was announced.
The area immediately surrounding the expansion and beyond has a concrete reason for increased development, whether retail, entertainment, residential or hospitality. Southern Land Company announced late last year that it was building the first residential high rise seen in Fort Worth in the last 30 years. The firm’s Deco 969 project won’t be the last residential high rise to grace Fort Worth’s skies.
Universities with a heavy research component breed startups, and it isn’t difficult to imagine the next billion-dollar idea being born in the halls of the new campus. Fort Worth has a startup community that has created industry behemoths, and adding the weight of Texas A&M to the mix will accelerate trends already in place.
Adding a skilled workforce to the city attracts companies who want to tap into an employment base and boost income for the city’s population. The tailwinds from that dynamic could greatly impact multiple facets of Fort Worth’s life.
The Texas A&M University System has planted its flag in Fort Worth in a big way. The leaders who helped create the project and those watching it agree on one thing; it’s impossible to quantify exactly how far-reaching an impact this expansion will have on the city.
Whatever that impact may be, it will most certainly reshape the city.
The growing Texas A&M presence
The Texas A&M University System’s presence in North Texas has been growing for some time. The university system bought what is now the Texas A&M Law School from Texas Wesleyan University in 2013. Sharp said during his interview for chancellor in 2011, he listed having a law school within A&M as his number one priority.
The law school quickly grew in prominence, rising in the rankings at a pace that stunned observers. The law school is currently ranked number two in Texas and has ambitions to occupy the top stop in the future. Sharp said the university system is allocating resources to reach this goal.
Aside from producing lawyers, the law school has a wide range of programs for non-J.D. students, from Master of Legal Studies to day training, giving students an edge in legal knowledge. These programs have been well received by local industry and will continue to grow.
About 700 people are enrolled in the master’s program for non-lawyer professionals. A&M has two engineering academies in Fort Worth and Dallas. These programs are held at community colleges and give juniors automatic admittance into Texas A&M University.
About a third of A&M’s student body is engineers, and the school has long focused on growing engineering professionals.
“If you look out that window, everything you see was either created by God or an engineer,” Sharp said.
The system has moved Texas A&M Commerce into a high-rise building in DFW and has started teaching classes there. The system recently built the Texas A&M College of Dentistry in Dallas.
Sharp said that the A&M System made a grave error in ceding the University of Texas at Arlington to the University of Texas System. The A&M System has wanted a bigger presence in North Texas for some time, and when Goff and Price pitched the idea to make a large expansion in downtown Fort Worth, it got an immediate thumbs up.
Staggering workforce implications
Fort Worth as a city can be viewed as a metropolitan area in its teenage years, said Mattie Parker, Mayor of Fort Worth. This expansion offers a critical component the city has been missing; a large, Tier 1 public university presence.
The expansion will expand the talent pool available to businesses in the city. A large public university presence attracts young professionals seeking educational opportunities and helps a city keep those young professionals for the long haul.
Several local industry leaders, including Alcon, AT&T and Lockheed Martin, have ongoing collaborations with the Texas A&M University System. The expansion offers the opportunity for specialized workforce training in areas that previously didn’t exist in the city.
“You’ve got existing corporate relationships as well as future relationships that are possible and expanded here because of this announcement,” Parker said. “Along with that, I’ll remind you that the workforce training and industry collaborations will continue to evolve and grow. I think, truly, that the sky’s the limit.”
The A&M expansion is directly tied to boosting Fort Worth’s profile as a relocation destination, said Robert Sturns, economic development director for the city of Fort Worth. The first question companies ask when they’re considering a site for relocation is about the workforce, and having A&M’s presence in the city makes Fort Worth more attractive.
Other higher education institutions in the city include Texas Christian University, the University of Texas at Arlington and Tarleton State University. With the A&M System’s expansion, Sturns said there’s a nexus of higher education working to provide the city with a skilled workforce.
“I think it’s going to be a major selling point for us when we talk about talent assets on the ground and what that’s going to look like over the next 10 to 15 years,” he said. “That pipeline will be very strong.”
Sharp said that the Texas A&M System has long focused on workforce development because the state’s workforce needs to change and evolve rapidly. Texas has a huge advantage in that the state has a large portion of its population between 18 and 24 years old, which appeals to companies wanting to relocate.
Companies also want to know how educated the population is, including professional services such as education for engineers and nurses and workforce training in fields like advanced manufacturing.
“So a company that’s thinking about coming into Fort Worth, we’ll be able to say to them, ‘Tell us what you want these kids to be able to do, and we’re going to train them for you and make sure that’s the best-trained workforce that you have,’” Sharp said.
Research and development
When Hurricane Harvey struck Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott called the Texas A&M University System and asked it to lead the rebuilding effort. One of the reasons Abbott made that call is because whenever Texas declares an emergency, it kicks in several A&M agencies.
Whenever an emergency like a hurricane strikes, agencies like the Texas A&M Forest Service and the Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service can move in to start rescue operations as soon as the wind dies down. After Hurricane Harvey, the Governor and the Texas Legislature transferred the $2 billion budget of the Texas Division of Emergency Management into the A&M System.
TDEM’s resources are within the Texas A&M University System, including extensive research, workforce training and disaster response. Much of that infrastructure will be housed in the upcoming expansion.
A&M’s downtown Fort Worth expansion will host many state agencies and research departments that directly benefit local industry. Texas A&M has eight state agencies attached to its system, including the Texas A&M AgriLife agency and the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station.
The Texas A&M AgriLife agency is the largest agriculture and nutrition research organization in the United States. Among other objectives, Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station conducts applied engineering research in market segments including health care, energy, national security, manufacturing and national security.
Upon completion, the research and innovation building will house the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station, AgriLife, Tarleton State University, the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, the Texas Department of Emergency Management and the Health Sciences Center.
The academic and law building will host the Texas A&M University School of Law, Health Sciences Center, College of Engineering, Mays School of Business and Tarleton State University. Various industry partners and entrepreneurs will also be conducting research within the new campus.
The College of Engineering will be teaching classes in the new buildings first and foremost, Sharp said, but TEES will also be present to conduct research for Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and other industry leaders. The expansion will come with the infrastructure to do any work these industry leaders may need. TEES contains about $400 million worth of engineering research.
“A&M is the largest research complex in the southwestern United States,” he said. “You’d have to go to the East Coast or West Coast to find a bigger research portfolio than A&M has.”
The expansion will eventually house the Texas Department of Emergency Management’s North Texas headquarters and a potential training school.
Tentative programming within the new campus will include emergency response communication and training, medical technologies, advanced manufacturing, nutrition, biotechnology, medical laboratory science and nursing.
Small wonder business leaders have been salivating.
Parker said the local corporate base in Fort Worth is already partnering with A&M in several ways, including Alcon, AT&T, Bell, Elbit Systems of America and Lockheed Martin.
Once A&M’s R&D activities are brought to Fort Worth, it stands to reason that these relationships will deepen.
“You’re starting to hear and percolate new excitement from other industries and corporations across the country,” she said.
A&M’s existing ties to business and industry already are very strong. AT&T opened 5G testbeds at the Texas A&M University System’s RELLIS Campus, enabling public and private sector organizations to test 5G applications. A&M has a master research agreement with AT&T and is involved in several projects with the telecommunications giant.
Sharp said some of the things AT&T is working on with A&M could solve the broadband problem in rural Texas.
Lockheed Martin is the number one employer of Texas A&M engineering students, and A&M also has a master research agreement with the aerospace firm. Lockheed Martin has funded a lot of A&M’s hypersonic research.
“They’re already funding a lot of our research in the College Station-Bryan area, but we’re looking forward to bringing that research up here and having an even closer engagement,” said Joe Elabd, Texas A&M University System, Vice Chancellor for Research.
The three main industry buckets in Fort Worth are aerospace, mobility and energy, Sturns said. As companies within those verticals increase their use of technology, they’re pouring resources into research and development. Now, they’ll be able to tap into A&M’s resources as they grow.
Several years ago, Fort Worth put together a research and development tax credit program, and spurring local innovation is something the city has been focused on for some time.
“We’re diversifying our industries, and we’re trying to be on the cutting edge of some of the new technology that’s being developed,” he said. “The partnership with A&M will allow us to do that. Just from a purely economic development standpoint, I think it’s a good story for us.”
Multiple firms, such as Alcon, are already discussing co-locating at the new campus. Having a campus in an urban center allows A&M to offer a portfolio of collaboration opportunities much closer to home for its industry partners.
The upcoming expansion has a great location in Fort Worth, but it’s a great location for downtown Dallas as well, said Robert Ahdieh, Dean of the Texas A&M University Law School and Anthony G. Buzbee Endowed Dean’s Chair. It also has great connectivity to DFW International Airport.
A&M could go to a company in Chicago, New York or Los Angeles to offer a three-day training program.
“It creates this opportunity for us to make DFW a real hub for the business community, professional development and executive education,” he said.
Spurring future development
The A&M expansion will take place in a part of downtown that hasn’t seen a lot of development in the past. Located on the southern end of downtown, some are looking to the A&M expansion as a catalyst for future development in that area.
The area first exploded after A&M bought the law school, said Todd Burnette, managing director of JLL’s Fort Worth office. Today, there’s a decent amount of activity in the southern downtown area, including the upcoming Deco 969 residential high-rise and the convention center expansion.
A&M will have office space for companies that want to be close to the research they’re conducting. The expansion paves the way for several additional amenities to be built in the area, including residential, retail and entertainment development.
Burnette said the expansion would impact the downtown office market, but it likely won’t be dramatic. However, it’ll certainly bring heavier foot traffic to the downtown area.
Sturns noted that the expansion is not happening in a vacuum. Several developments along Lancaster Avenue have been moving forward, and the city is consolidating some operations in the area.
On the other end of downtown, the city is preparing for Panther Island, the project that will reroute the Trinity River to expand Fort Worth’s downtown area. That project has been funded, and the city is discussing what it will look like in practice.
There will be opportunities for future office down the line, Sturns said. The retail and restaurant presence in that downtown area is minimal and will be sorely needed once the campus is built and operational.
The city is currently working to see if it can leverage the upcoming campus and convention center into a corporate campus in that part of downtown. It may be on a smaller scale, such as if Lockheed Martin wanted to open a small office beside the campus and its main offices in west Fort Worth. But if enough companies want a presence by A&M, that office footprint in the area could grow quickly.
The Texas A&M University System currently has around 75 projects running system-wide, and none is running behind, said Billy Hamilton, Texas A&M University System Deputy Chancellor.
“We’ve got a great construction staff, and if we set a target on when to get something constructed, we get it constructed on time,” he said.
The original conception was to build the law and education building first, then construct the research and innovation building. This would’ve given the law school a place to reside while the old building was torn down.
However, after discussions with the city and county, A&M decided to construct both buildings almost simultaneously. A&M will benefit from economies of scale even as construction costs continue to rise.
Hamilton said the various agencies and universities that will be housed on the campus have been enthusiastic about their desire to have a presence in North Texas, in many cases asking for additional space. A&M is trying to move these buildings forward as quickly as it can.
“We are comfortable with spread operations,” Hamilton said. “I think that’s also key to making this a success, is to recognize the potential here and then try to realize it.”
Parker said the campus expansion couldn’t have come at a better time for Fort Worth. The city has had plans going back decades to expand and invest in its convention center district and the water gardens, which are situated across from where the new campus will be located.
The investments Fort Worth makes with A&M will be important for downtown overall. The city has a special focus on bringing in additional Class A office space for downtown.
“We understand how important this is in the economic development game,” she said. “So for those reasons alone, the timing is perfect.”
Changing the fabric of Fort Worth
Many have speculated about the long-term effects the expansion will have on the city’s population. For starters, there may be more maroon adorning passers-by and a little less purple, and other changes are harder to quantify.
It’s difficult to track changes a city experiences after a university establishes a new presence because it doesn’t happen that often, said Brett Theodos, senior researcher at the Urban Institute. Theodos studies factors that make communities thrive and succeed, including how public universities influence towns.
While it is hard to gauge the role universities play in making cities succeed, it is fair to say that major universities can play a major role in the local economy.
“They bring a lot of jobs; they bring a number of higher paying jobs,” Theodos said. “They bring students who want to spend money and grad students. To the extent that they can retain some of those students after graduation, it can be an important economic driver.”
Some cities, like Madison, Wisconsin or Ann Arbor, Michigan, are made by their university presence. A public university presence is a critical economic driver in these communities, adding an important source of revenue and propping up the local real estate market.
Other cities, like Laramie, Wyoming, only exist because they have a public university presence.
In larger cities, having a public university presence is a little like throwing a stone in a pond. In New York, for example, the impact is relative to the size of the overall economy.
As far as driving growth, it matters, and it helps to have a university in the city. Still, it’s not as simple as having a university directly equating to economic growth. In and of itself, a university is not enough to overcome some deficits.
Dallas-Fort Worth is often lumped together as a single market. Still, the truth is the west, and east sides are two separate, distinct communities, said Dean Barber, principal of Barber Business Advisors. Barber’s firm mostly works in economic development consulting.
“Here’s the joke; people in Fort Worth hate to go to Dallas, and people in Dallas aren’t really sure where Fort Worth is,” he said. “It’s a joke, but there’s a kernel of truth to it.”
Fort Worth’s culture helped the city land the A&M expansion. During the A&M Board of Regents meeting to affirm the new campus, several administrators and city officials commented on how Fort Worth is an appropriate cultural fit for the Texas A&M University System.
“Fort Worth is our kind of town,” Sharp said. “First of all, it’s full of Aggies. Second of all, it’s the kind of people who are Texans. I don’t know how to describe that best, but people who have Texas values.”
The first effect a public university has on a city is the staff. This includes higher-paying positions such as faculty but also for administrative employees, janitors, cooks, and other staff. Having a university become a draw for tourism provides a tangible effect and creates additional employment.
The real “X” factor, Theodos said, is whether a city can retain students after graduation. If that happens, it spurs additional economic growth beyond what can be easily measured in direct economic impact figures. Some universities have a track record of this, while others do not.
Fort Worth has a large, diverse economy. The new campus will help and influence the city, but Fort Worth will never be a one-trick pony.
“I don’t expect that we’re talking about overnight, night and day style changes. That said, look and what lengths politicians go to, including governors, to get a manufacturer to move to a town. That might produce 400 jobs, let alone 1,000 jobs. Universities do that, and in a sustainable way every year,” he said.
One potential change might come in the form of the city’s politics. The expansion will add a lot of outside talent, including students and staff. Barber said he’d guess the city could become more liberal.
New business formation
An often overlooked component of having a Tier 1-university presence is the capability to transform research into new businesses. This can famously be seen in cities like Boston or areas like Silicon Valley, both of which have healthy venture capital communities. A&M is making it a focus to spur this innovation, and the city’s leadership is eager to see it unfold.
Fort Worth doesn’t have a lot of local venture capital investors, Sturns said. It’s a little bit of a chicken-and-egg scenario; there need to be companies to attract venture capitalists and venture capitalists to help companies get off the ground.
Having A&M will go a long way in attracting outside investment for startups. Sturns described the upcoming A&M research and innovation center as adding “rocket fuel” to Fort Worth’s entrepreneurial community.
The history of venture capital is tied to universities like Stanford and the computer science developments that emerged from those universities. When discussing research, it’s important to note that not all research is created equally.
Some research categories, like biotech, computer science, chemical and manufacturing, all have better venture capital applicability than other types of research.
“The humanities are lovely but aren’t generating new patents,” Theodos said.
The new campus will have a leg up in that a good deal of the research will be conducted alongside industry leaders. A&M has worked with the industry in its research, and university officials said they’re committed to fostering innovation that could lead to new home-grown businesses in Fort Worth.
Part of that effort will involve putting different parties within the research and innovation building. The Texas A&M University System has already been in conversations with local Fort Worth incubators and accelerators like TechFW and Techstars about potentially placing them in the same building as researchers doing use-inspired research.
The research building will be designed in such a way as to allow researchers to have easy access to lab space. Whenever a researcher needs to perform an experiment or fabricate something, they’ll have readily available tools at their disposal.
“You put a lot of smart people together, and you see what comes out,” Hamilton said.
Places that have succeeded in fostering this sort of environment, like Silicon Valley, have aspects such as a culture and human capital that drive them, Ahdieh said. But more than that, they have physical nodes that bring people together and help facilitate research and innovation.
He said this could be one of those nodes for Fort Worth, Dallas and Texas.
Creating a culture and an environment that supports technology and innovation is something Parker is focused on, she said. Texas A&M is positioning itself as an anchor for that sort of activity.
The growing law school
When U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman first heard about A&M buying the law school from Texas Wesleyan University, he thought it was a bad idea. Pittman, who got his undergraduate at Texas A&M, said he was concerned that there wouldn’t be enough positions available for graduates and thought that Texas didn’t need another law school.
Today, he’s an adjunct professor at the Texas A&M University School of Law. “I quickly changed my mind once I saw the quality of the students,” he said.
Sharp prioritized obtaining a law school for the Texas A&M University System. When he got the job as chancellor, his first trip was to see his friend and longtime Fort Worth power broker Dee Kelly Sr. The president of Texas Wesleyan University was in Kelly’s office.
Texas Wesleyan University needed to make multimillion-dollar improvements to its main campus, and Texas A&M was interested in making a multimillion-dollar payment for the law school.
When A&M bought the law school, it was unranked, and it’s risen quickly to occupy its current position as the number two law school in the state.
“Our goal is to be the number one ranked law school in the state of Texas, sooner rather than later,” Sharp said.
The university system started pouring resources into the school to pursue that goal. Pittman said since he’s been teaching there, he’s seen a steady progression in the caliber of students, who are now on par with law students from top schools across the nation.
The legal market is strong in North Texas, and the Texas A&M University School of Law has been focused on areas of legal practice that are beneficial to the region, said Tim Newman, litigation partner at Haynes and Boone. Newman got his undergraduate degree at Texas A&M University.
Some key areas of focus for the law school include intellectual property and technology, energy and environmental law, cybersecurity and privacy.
“Those are all growing needs in the North Texas legal market,” he said. “I think the expansion, the increased collaboration with industry, will play a vital role in filling the workforce needs that North Texas has.”
Pittman said he believes the Texas A&M University School of Law could easily rise to be one of the top law schools in the country over the coming years. Part of the success the law school has seen so far has come from its location; many law students would rather be in Fort Worth than in College Station.
The law school has succeeded because it charted an atypical path, Ahdieh said. Most higher education institutions use a model of mimicry, while the Texas A&M University School of Law set out to address critical needs in the state of Texas and across the nation. The law school also identified areas of distinctive strength it could grow.
Master of Legal Studies enrollment in the law school has grown from 13 students in 2017 to 629 as of the spring of 2022. Post-graduate employment has risen from about 68% in the class of 2015 to almost 95% in the class of 2021.
Since 2015, the law school has hired 36 faculty and invested heavily in student scholarships. This, coupled with a push to invest in specific key areas in the law, created a snowball effect that has pushed the law school up through the rankings.
The Texas A&M University School of Law ranks fourth in the nation for arbitration and mediation today and sixth for intellectual property and technology. Ahdieh said rankings reflect the content, and the law school’s priority is to continue on its current trajectory with human capital and high-caliber students.
The law school’s success can be attributed to John Sharp, the efforts of the law school’s deans and its aggressive faculty, Pittman said, and that this expansion is the most meaningful thing to happen to the university since A&M allowed women into its school in the 1960s.
“I have never heard of a major university being able to come in and take over any type of graduate school and then turn it around in as short an amount of time as A&M has the law school,” he said.
A bright but unpredictable future
In 2020, the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents voted to amend the system’s capital budget, adding $79.3 million to build the nation’s biggest enclosed-tube hypersonic testing facility and testing grounds for air and land combat vehicles at the RELLIS campus. The Bush Combat Development Complex facility allows the military to test high-tech prototypes as they’re being developed.
Sharp said A&M hadn’t been thinking about hypersonics at the RELLIS campus, but the Pentagon sure was. Very quickly, A&M wound up with some of the best hypersonic researchers in the country.
There was no way to predict how the RELLIS campus would unfold as the first shovels turned earth. The same thing is going to happen with this expansion, he said.
Many have called the expansion audacious, but Sharp said A&M has been audacious for the past 10 years. The academic system has been willing to take risks that don’t pan out and see what works and doesn’t.
“Academic institutions, oftentimes, are slow moving and very conservative and cautious in their tendencies,” Ahdieh said. “There’s a place for that, but it also obviously limits the capacity of an academic institution to partner with the business community, to elevate the business community and to really advance economic development and the goals we have.”
The Texas A&M University System has been present in North Texas for some time but hasn’t been as visible. The expansion will give visibility and cohesion to A&M’s North Texas presence.
Fort Worth doesn’t have a Tier 1 research university presence, and the more A&M looked into the city, the more it realized it needed to be there.
Parker said that expansion boils down to life-changing workforce development for Fort Worth and world-class research and education. The expansion will attract young professionals to the city and spur innovation that the city hasn’t seen before.
There are many reasons to believe John Goff’s words will bear out, although none have been able to specify exactly how. Business and civic leaders agree that A&M’s downtown Fort Worth expansion will offer the city opportunities that haven’t been present before.
“It’s one of those things where you under-promise and over-deliver,” she said. “We’re not saying we’re making any promises here, and it’s more that we know this is the absolute best thing for Fort Worth and the A&M System.”
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