The planned opening on Tues. May 20, 2025 of TRS' new headquarters in Austin's Mueller community heralds a member-focused, accessible and financially responsible solution for our growing Texas teacher pension fund. The decision to relocate outside downtown Austin has avoided costly renovations to the existing 52-year-old headquarters on Red River St. The TRS Board of Trustees finalized the decision in 2021 to purchase the new property.
Moving Forward Together – Background on TRS’ New Headquarters at Mueller
Building for tomorrow to secure our members’ financial future is the ‘business’ we are in at TRS. That philosophy of investing in the long term, for many future generations, means more than just steadily earning financial returns every year. It also means listening to our members’ priorities, like keeping costs down while improving their experience as they plan and carry out their retirements.
With cost savings in mind, in late 2022 TRS sold the aging property which has served as our headquarters in Austin for more than 50 years. Leaving downtown Austin will best help TRS grow to meet the needs of our fast-growing membership and the services provided every day. In line with our longstanding mission to earn our members’ trust every day, TRS pension leadership cares deeply about the quality of our members’ experience.
A successful retirement is a major life event, and we strive to make this important process optimal to every Texas educator we serve. The construction and successful opening of our new headquarters—that generations of members can soon proudly call their own—has been a thoughtful and collaborative process a decade in the making
TRS’ new facility located in central Austin's Mueller community will mark the eighth time the pension fund has moved in its 88-year history to keep up with growth needs (see ‘TRS facilities through the years’ below). Today, TRS serves more than two million active and retired public educators from teachers and librarians to custodians and school bus drivers.
The vision of the new campus is to:
- increase availability and efficiency of in-person counseling office visits in a professional, supportive environment that our active members and retirees can relate to and call home,
- provide an easily accessible location outsidred with our public pension peers at 2.1 front-office employees per 10,000 members, TRS still expects to continue growing by 2050 to meet members' needs. Today the Texas teacher pension is valued at around $200 billion, the sixth largest in the U.S. and among the top 20 funds of its kind in the world.
The new headquarters includes a larger, modern TRS Member Center and office space for staff, necessary to provide the service and retirement support that members will need moving into the future. TRS is also improving its service model by considering and opening more regional offices. In late 2022, TRS successfully opened a regional office in El Paso to provide additional counseling services in the region.
Cost and long-term savings
The cost of the new campus is expected to be about $340 million. This has been offset by $108 million from the October 2022 sale of the Red River campus. While the pension trust fund is allocating funds upfront for the remainder, those dollars effectively remain within the pension in the form of a capital real estate asset. TRS expects that the value of the new property will grow in the long term. This project:
- required no state appropriation of dollars
- should have no impact on the overall value or actuarial health of the pension trust fund
- will allow the pension to realize cost savings. Acquiring the new headquarters means TRS eliminated the need to lease office space downtown or renovate aging buildings
The purchase of the new campus aligns with the intent of the pension's board of trustees who, in the 1970s adopted a 50-year facilities plan for the Red River site.
How We Got Here
The TRS board began long-term facilities planning discussions in 2014. However, the board deferred further discussions at that time. The board next considered the issue of a new agency headquarters in 2019. It commissioned an Austin real estate market survey which indicated that the Austin central business district (CBD) real estate leasing market had changed significantly. While the existing and planned supply of real estate increased, the supply increase was not enough to meet the market's demand, and leasing costs also increased.
In 2019, TRS' real estate broker issued a request for proposals (RFP) that identified potential developers for new facilities. The TRS team narrowed the candidates' proposals to three finalists. TRS moved forward with negotiations with the finalists, and, in February 2020, contract negotiations began. However, in March of 2020, the pandemic intervened, and in the April 2020 board meeting, the TRS board suspended activities until the pandemic's effects on facilities planning could be better understood.
In September 2021, TRS trustees voted to approve the purchase of the new campus at Mueller and sale of the Red River facility.
TRS Facilities through the Years
TRS was organized by statute in 1937 and over the past 88 years has been housed in eight separate locations in downtown Austin. In the early 1970s, the board designed a long-term plan for agency facilities and began assembling the land required for the plan. Land was identified within the Brackenridge Urban Renewal Project and the board authorized purchase in 1970 of the first portion (83%) of the current Red River site. Construction of the West Building (80,384 square feet) on the site was completed in 1973. Two additional small parcels were purchased in 1977 and 1984 to fully complete the two block Red River property.
The 1970s-era planning and land acquisition resulted in an especially forward-looking 50-year facilities plan. Phase 1 was the West Building and Phase 2 was the East Building, which was completed in 1990 resulting in Red River's current total square footage of 217,976 square feet.
A skybridge and employee cafeteria, constructed over the former Neches Street right-of-way, connects the West and East Buildings to create a completed facility.
Texas and TRS membership continued to grow and in 2007 TRS once again ran out of space. Since the existing buildings could not be feasibly expanded due to Capitol view corridor and other site-related restrictions, the board authorized a lease of additional space at 816 Congress Ave. for the Investment Management Division. The original lease at that location was for approximately 47,034 square feet and later expanded to 76,786 square feet before that lease ended in 2023. TRS' Investment Management Division and other TRS teams moved into the first building of the new headquarters at Mueller in the spring and summer of 2023.
In summary, TRS' new headquarters in the Mueller community in Austin, fully opening in May 2025 will provide a modern, accessible and cost-effective solution for the next generations of TRS members, retirees and their families.