Uber To Set Up Major Hub In Downtown Dallas
It’s official: Uber Technologies will open an office of at least 3,000 employees in Deep Ellum, and it plans to turn Dallas into its largest hub outside of its San Francisco headquarters, company officials told The Dallas Morning News on Tuesday.
Uber will hire or relocate about 400 employees to Dallas by the end of the year, said Chris Miller, senior manager of public policy in Texas. It will move into a tower on the edge of downtown Dallas in July 2020 and then into a taller tower on the same site about two years later. Most of Uber’s Dallas employees will work in finance, human resources and sales, Miller said. They will support the company’s transportation-related businesses, including ride hailing, food delivery and the development of urban air taxis. “We really see this as the spine to support all of our global offices and operations across the world,” Miller said.
The new office comes at a challenging time for Uber. The ride-hailing company wants to become the “Amazon of transportation” but has yet to turn a profit. Since it went public in May, Uber has lost more than $6 billion, reported its slowest ever revenue growth and taken cost-cutting measures. It laid off about 400 marketing employees in late July and recently froze hiring of software engineers and product managers across much of its business. But Miller said the new office in Dallas shows that Uber is focused on the future. “We are continuing to aggressively hire talent, and I think we're proving that with the Dallas office,” he said.
State, city and county leaders approved nearly $36 million in economic incentives to bring Uber to Dallas, and some of those include job creation targets. Miller said Uber is confident it can create 3,000 jobs and pay at least an average annual salary of $100,000.
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson called the city and Uber “a great match.” “Dallas is a vibrant, diverse, welcoming and innovative city, and I’m certain Uber and its employees will flourish here,” he said in a prepared statement.
Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said Uber's expansion will fuel efforts to attract more high-tech companies and expand the local pipeline of workers for them. "We already were a major tech player," he said. "This just accelerates it and makes the next corporate location even easier."
Gov. Greg Abbott said in a prepared statement that Uber's investment "will bolster Texas' continued economic success and reputation as the best state for business..."
