"It's a combination of not only Dallas being an easy place to get to, but there's been so much growth that people wanted to get back to see it. And, the economy is so much better," Lynn Schenck, SIOR national president told GlobeSt.com after the opening session at the Downtown Hyatt Regency. The North Texas chapter kicked off a weekend of events headlined by keynote speeches from Dr. James F. Smith, SIOR's chief economist, and Texas' own H. Ross Perot Sr.
Schenck of St. Louis told the crowd, the largest in five years, that she's noticed the "optimism" and change in the commercial landscape as she traveled the SIOR circuit this year. "I think 2004 and 2005 are going to be great years for our industry," she said.
But, the final word on the state of the economy came from Smith, formerly of the University of North Texas and now senior fellow and director of the Center for Business Forecasting at the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise in the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "The economic outlook has not been better in two decades," Smith said. With each downturn, Dallas emerged stronger than before; this time, it won't be any different.
"Anybody who bets against the Dallas/Fort Worth economy or anybody who bets against the Texas economy is going to lose," Smith vowed. Texas contributes more than $800 billion in annual economic output. Its population base accounts for $1 out of every $3 in the global economy. The numbers are such that Texas, if a country, would rank as the eighth largest in the world. "Anyway you want to measure it, this is a very, very attractive market for anybody who wants to sell anything to anybody," he said.
With that said, Smith rallied spirits by saying 2004 is "going to be a barnburner year and you can take that to the bank." That will translate into a record-setting employment level for the region, he added.
The National Federation of Independent Business today will release a survey supporting Smith's predictions. By Smith's calculations, this year's GDP growth will be 3%, rise to 5% next year for its highest reading since 1984 and then hold at 4.2% annually through 2008. His best advice: "Don't worry about a national recession until 2010" and until then, "sit back, relax and work hard."
Perot, the keynote speaker for the welcoming session, represented a classic example of hard work, but put the spotlight on his son's vision, more so than his, to build the nation's first industrial airport. Location, creativity and thinking out of the box brought AllianceTexas out of the ground, the same hallmarks that it takes for any a successful commercial real estate venture. "There are times to buy and times to sell," Perot said, "but I don't have to tell you that.
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