 Leppert is also credited with persuading AT&T to relocate to Dallas as well as encouraging the start-up of a new $15 million call center that plans to ultimately employ 300 workers.In December 2008, Leppert began lobbying the Obama administration for $386 million in Community Development Block Grant funds to be awarded by the federal government for the purpose of building a new convention center hotel in downtown Dallas (a project that had been on Dallas' drawing board for nearly two decades), stating