Texas Metroplex
Texas Metroplex
Business is booming at an accelerated rate in the state's sprawling Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. "It's so good, it makes you nervous," said Dary Stone, president of Faison-Stone, the property management firm for Las Colinas, a graciously landscaped, mixed-use development site that has become the headquarters of top national corporations.
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Stone was chairman of the state's finance commission in 1987 and 1988 "when we closed all those institutions" in the wake of the state's savings and loan crisis. "I saw the worst of all times, up close and personal," he said.
"We have worked through all of that. We have a terrifically diversified economy and one that's really advantageous to start-up businesses," Stone said. "There are a lot of great stories of companies that have started here and have grown in a very dramatic way." |
The Metroplex is actually made up of 12 North Texas counties, including Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington and 163 other municipalities. Unlike the oil producer status accorded the fictional Dallas for the popular television show of the same name, the real city's labor stake in the petroleum business totals only 1 percent. That helped cushion the city from the oil and gas woes of the mid-1980s, although supporting services suffered, as did the region's real estate sectors. The television show's inclusion of eating and shopping as favorite activities was closer to the mark. The Metroplex has more shopping centers per capita than any U.S. city, and boasts more restaurants per capita than New York City.
In Dallas, Big D also means diversification. In 1995, the Metroplex ranked No. 1 in new facilities and expansions and No. 2 in new manufacturing plants. Among recent Metroplex relocations or expansions: AT&T, Doskocill Manufacturing, Texas Motor Speedway, Burlington Northern Railroad, Nokia and Quaker State Oil. "We're having a great year in the attraction of a wide range of companies and a wide range of functions," said Reid Rector, senior vice president of the Greater Dallas Chamber of Commerce.
| In Arlington alone, some $635 million in planned facilities construction was reported in 1995. Arlington's General Motors plant is undergoing a conversion that is resulting in construction spending in excess of $240 million. Arlington bested the Big Apple when Hughes Training Inc. decided to consolidate its New York facilities with its Arlington center, with a $35 million expansion now under way. |
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"Probably the industry that is going through the most dynamic period right now is the wireless aspect of the telecommunications industry," Rector said, citing the recent moves to the Dallas area by PCS PrimeCo and Sprint Spectrum.
A top Metroplex calling card is the D/FW International Airport, now the second-busiest airport in the world in terms of total operations. By the year 2000, D/FW is expected to surpass Chicago's O'Hare to become the world's busiest airport. By the year 2010, D/FW will handle more than 100 million passengers annually -- double the number it accommodates today. The airport, which boasts 117 aircraft boarding gates located within four terminals, covers 27 square miles, an area larger than Manhattan Island.
The recent opening of Runway 17L/35R brings to seven the number of commercial aviation runways serving the airport. An eighth commercial aviation runway is planned for construction by the end of the decade. Since 1989 the number of international destinations served by D/FW has more than doubled.
From Weatherford to Wylie, 26 other general aviation and reliever airports serve the Metroplex, which also boasts five major interstate highways, four major intermodal facilities and six rail lines.
"Companies see our population growing dramatically, and that continues to provide an ample labor force, and we've got a competitive real estate market," Rector said.
"We've had a fairly consistent history of absorption in the industrial and office market for the last three to five years such that our industrial market presently is operating at 95 percent occupancy, whereas three to five years before that we were at 65 percent occupancy," Rector said. "Some fairly dramatic strides have been made in terms of absorption."
For the 21st century? "Dallas wants to be a leader in terms of the three focus industries we have: telecommunications, electronics in the broadest sense and the biomedical industry," Rector said. "We also want to continue to promote Dallas as an increasingly international city."
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