Toyota Motor Co. is adding more horsepower to its new office campus in Plano.
After months of speculation, plans filed with the city of Plano show that the automaker’s new North American headquarters will be about twice the size originally proposed.
A revised site plan released by the Plano planning and zoning commission shows that the headquarters complex in West Plano has grown to more than 2.1 million square feet — bigger than a downtown skyscraper.
That would make it the largest new office project in North Texas and one of the largest in the state. It’s slightly bigger than State Farm Insurance’s new regional operation in Richardson.
The engineering documents show about a half-dozen office and commercial buildings plus parking garages on the 99.8-acre development site Toyota is building on Legacy Drive just south of State Highway 121.
There’s also going to be parking for more than 7,000 cars.
Originally, Toyota said that slightly fewer than 4,000 people would be working at the office campus when it opens in 2017. Later, Toyota said as many as another 1,000 contract workers would be located at the facility, which will replace the Japanese automaker’s longtime U.S. office in Southern California.
"While we are still in the planning stage and no final decisions have been made, our new campus will likely be larger than originally reported to accommodate not only our team members, but also some portion of our corporate partners, consultants and contingency staff,” Toyota said in a statement.
The Toyota office site layout also shows an auto test tract on the northwest corner of the property along the south side of State Highway 121.
The Toyota headquarters was previously estimated to cost about $350 million and is being designed by Dallas-based architect Corgan.
Construction on the project began this year.
While big commercial developments like the Toyota campus often get larger during the planning process, it’s rare that such projects almost double in size from original expectations.
There have been rumors for months that the project was growing bigger.
“We’ve heard a lot of positive things about what Toyota is expecting from Texas,” said Chris Taylor, with commercial real estate firm DTZ. “It’s a huge deal and so good for our region.
“We keep hearing there will be a lot of people coming to support Toyota,” Taylor said. “We are already seeing office tenants in the market that are related to them.”
Toyota is moving workers to Plano from California, New York and Kentucky. Several hundred employees are moving to temporary office space in Legacy business park.
The new Toyota campus is part of the 240-acre Legacy West mixed-use development, which also includes offices for FedEx Office and Liberty Mutual Insurance.
