This column appeared as part of D CEO Magazine’s real estate blog. BOKA Powell designed Hillwood Commons I, along with numerous other office projects for Hillwood at AllianceTexas. BOKA Powell also provided interior design services for each of the Hillwood Commons I tenants mentioned in Mr. Burton’s column.
D CEO Magazine: CRE Opinion: Amenities Fueling Office Growth at Alliance Town Center
by BILL BURTON
Executive Vice President, Hillwood Properties and Hillwood Urban
The national real estate spotlight continues shining on North Texas, with recent news from CBRE that our region was the top performing office leasing market in the nation, outpacing the second place Los Angeles market by nearly 2 million square feet. I think this comes as no surprise based on the incredible amount of activity we’ve seen taking place across Dallas-Fort Worth and certainly here in the AllianceTexas corridor.
For many years, the Hillwood development team has studied best practices in office development and integrated them into the master plans of our signature projects like AllianceTexas. In fact, Hillwood Commons I at the 950-acre, mixed-use Alliance Town Center was created to meet the increasing demand in the AllianceTexas corridor for highly amenitized Class A office space. And, with this demand surging, we expect to build more than 2 million square feet of office product at Alliance Town Center.
With the recent development of Charles Schwab, and their desire for walkable amenities, adding to the long list of corporate residents throughout AllianceTexas that include Fidelity Investments, Deloitte University, Mercedes Benz Financial Services and TD Ameritrade, among others, it’s clear that demand for office space at AllianceTexas has been strong for quite some time. The success of Hillwood Commons I, which is already 90 percent leased, illustrates that there is pent-up demand in North Fort Worth for quality office environments with direct access to shopping, dining, medical, entertainment, and residential options, particularly.
In the 12 months since opening Hillwood Commons I, nationally known brands have taken residence, including GE Transportation’s Global Services Operations, Title Source, Lockheed Martin, TEKSystems, Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies (WABTEC), Peloton Land Solutions, and Oxford Global Resources, among others. And, to accommodate our own growth, we moved our company office into Hillwood Commons I at the end of last year. In tandem with the 367,000-square-foot FAA Southwest Regional Headquarters, the project has essentially created an entirely new office submarket in the North Fort Worth area.