DALLAS—RealShare Dallas's fourth and final session, “Town Hall: Trends from the Top,” brought together local experts whose focus is a variety of sectors.
Moderator Brian O'Boyle Sr., founder and vice chairman of ARA, A Newmark Co., kicked off the discussion asking about relocations, a hot topic in the DFW market.
“Different cities are looking for different types of employers,” said Bill Cawley, principal, Cawley Partners. “Plano, Frisco and Richardson have been big winners. Cities want $100,000-per-year jobs because people will spend the money [nearby].”
Jeff D. Thornton, regional senior vice president-Texas at Duke Realty Corp., offered the industrial perspective.
“It's not as glamorous,” he said about his area of expertise. “But there are fewer ups and downs.”
What makes an industrial project successful in DFW is its location relative to the population and relative to site selection, Thornton said.
John Crawford, president and CEO of Downtown Dallas Inc., offered that the term CBD is outdated in referring to downtown markets, and that geography is changing.
“Texas has become the third coast,” Crawford said. “There's nothing missing in Texas anymore. It's a real focal point not only domestically, but internationally.”
He also pointed to the need in downtown for more accessible (other than Neiman Marcus and the soon-to-open Forty Five Ten) outlets.
“We're still having some showers on the retail side,” he noted.
Scott Polikov, president with Gateway Planning, spoke to the increasing trend of walkability/live-work-play developments.
“Co-tenancies, adjacencies and leakage,” is what people focus on, he noted.
It all comes back to where workers want to be, he said, redirecting more conversation to live-work-play projects.
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