Jacobs Engineering Planning to Move Portion of Corporate Functions Out of Pasadena

[Updated Tuesday, May 31, 2016 | 6:30 p.m.]  One of Pasadena’s landmark companies is planning to move a portion of its corporate functions from Pasadena to the Lone Star State, Pasadena Now has learned. An earlier erroneous report had indicated the company was planning to leave altogether.

Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. confirms it is considering plans to move a portion of its corporate functions from its Pasadena, California, location to Dallas later this year, pending a successful real estate process and final approvals for state and local economic development investments, Jacobs Engineering Vice President Mendi Head said in an email to Pasadena Now.

Jacobs’ Pasadena office will continue to employ staff and remain in operation, Head wrote.

“We hope to make an official announcement later this summer,” Head had written in a statement to the Dallas Morning News.

The worldwide engineering and design firm, with more than 230 offices around the globe, is currently preparing specifics of the proposal to be available to the Dallas City Council sometime in June, said a source familiar with the transaction.

The engineering company, one of the world’s largest and most diverse providers of technical, professional and construction services, has long been one of the most prominent companies in the city, its landmark building rising up at the southern entrance of Pasadena at the end of the Arroyo Seco Parkway.

The company recently sold its landmark building to Art Center School of Design, as part of the school’s campus expansion.

The company, now a publicly traded Fortune 500 company valued at more than $6 billion, began its operations in Pasadena and currently has offices from New Zealand to Alaska, employing more than 64,000 workers around the world in architecture, aerospace, mining and transportation.

CEO Steven Demetriou took over as CEO in 2015 after working for major companies, including Irving-based Exxon/Mobil.

“Absolutely, it is extremely positive for the Dallas central business district,” Phil Puckett, executive vice president with commercial real estate firm CBRE, told The Dallas Morning News.