Southwest Airlines is building a new innovation center near its corporate headquarters as it remodels its former 102,000-square-foot flight training center near Dallas Love Field.
“It’s more of a lab environment where we are testing technologies and processes related to passenger movement and day of travel needs,” said Southwest Airlines spokesman Dan Landson.
Southwest is still putting together details of the project, but it plans to spend about $10 million remodeling the building at the northeast corner of Denton Drive and Burbank Street on the south side of Love Field, according to building permits.
The innovation center will only be part of the renovated building, Landson said. The 1959 building can be put to a new use because Southwest is building a 125,000-square-foot expansion to its nearby LEADS building, a pilot training center finished in 2018. The airline will have 18 flight simulators in that building, freeing up the old space.
The old flight training center building actually predates Southwest Airlines, which the late Herb Kelleher founded in 1967 with two other business partners.
Southwest has been on a building spree at its headquarters campus, where it has about 10,000 employees and brings thousands more pilots and flight attendants each year for training.
In recent years, Southwest also has opened a new flight attendant training center known as Tops on the campus section south of Denton Drive.
And at the end of December, Southwest bought 3 more acres of property on the southern edge of its campus. It hasn’t disclosed its plans for the former medical building there.
Innovation centers are a hot trend in corporate real estate, giving companies dedicated space for employees to test out ideas and products. IBM, Sabre, Deloitte, USAA and AT&T have opened innovation centers in North Texas in recent years, according to the Dallas Regional Chamber of Commerce.
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