Aerospace and defense manufacturing giant Raytheon Technologies, now known as RTX, plans to lay off workers at a Dallas plant in a move tied to closing the facility because of declining business and budget cuts.
The Arlington, Virginia-based company, which owns the plant at 6000 Lemmon Ave. in Dallas near Dallas Love Field Airport, told the Texas Workforce Commission in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification letter it planned to close the plant and lay off 27 workers at the facility. The move could lead to a redevelopment opportunity.
RTX recently completed the reorganization of its business, taking it from four business units to three business units — Pratt & Whitney, Collins Aerospace and Raytheon. It also rebranded from Raytheon Technologies to RTX as part of the process.
"The Raytheon business unit of Raytheon Technologies is initiating a reduction-in-force as a result of decline in anticipated business and budgetary constraints including plant closure," said Raytheon Employee and Labor Relations Executive Sandra Cormier Buchanan in the letter to the Texas Workforce Commission. "This action will result in a number of permanent layoffs at the Raytheon site at 6000 Lemmon Avenue in Dallas, Texas. We hope to accomplish these layoffs with the least possible disruption to the lives of our employees and the community."
Raytheon has more than 6,000 employees in the Dallas-Fort Worth region, the nation's fourth-largest metropolitan area with more than 7.9 million residents. The company has facilities in McKinney, Richardson and Dallas, and continues to add to its Texas real estate.
Raytheon, which had $67.1 billion in revenue last year, owns the fenced-in Dallas manufacturing plant, according to CoStar data. The 1940s-vintage building sits near Dallas Love Field Airport and within a few miles of downtown and Uptown Dallas. Raytheon bought the property more than two decades ago that was last valued at $15.2 million, according to the Dallas Central Appraisal District. The property's infill location could make it a valuable real estate play in the future.
Raytheon did not immediately return requests for comment to CoStar News about its plans for the Dallas real estate.
Raytheon's plant is in a part of Dallas that commands some of the highest industrial rents in the region, with historically low vacancy rates, CoStar's director of market analytics for Dallas-Fort Worth, Bill Kitchens, said. This part of Dallas remains a target of real estate investors, he added, but the rising cost of land and property in the area has investors focused on building office and multifamily properties.
"As growth pushes northward from the medical district toward Love Field, industrial buildings in East Brookhollow should remain a target for investors looking for redevelopment opportunities," Kitchens said.