TRS' new headquarters in Austin's Mueller community opened on May 20, 2025. It heralds an accessible and financially responsible solution with ongoing member-focused service for our growing Texas teacher pension fund. The decision to relocate outside downtown Austin avoided costly renovations to the former 52-year-old headquarters on Red River St. The TRS Board of Trustees finalized the decision in 2021 to purchase the new property at 4655 Mueller Blvd, Austin, TX 78723.
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 served as our headquarters in Austin for more than 50 years. Leaving downtown Austin helped TRS grow to meet the needs of our growing membership and the important services provided. 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—was a thoughtful and collaborative process a decade in the making.
TRS’ new campus in central Austin's Mueller community marks the eighth physical location that the pension fund has had since 1937 to keep up with growth needs (see ‘TRS facilities through the years'). 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
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 was offset by $108 million from the October 2022 sale of the Red River St. campus. While the pension trust fund allocated 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 former 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 COVID-19 pandemic intervened, and at 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 total square footage of 217,976 square feet.
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. Remaining employees moved to the Mueller headquarters in the spring of 2025.
Looking ahead, TRS' new headquarters in Austin's Mueller community will provide a modern, accessible and cost-effective solution for the next generations of TRS members, retirees and their families.