Las Colinas: There’s gold in them thar hills

“LAS COLINAS” sounds like a place in a foreign war flick-as in The Battle of… But, actually, Las Colinas-the largest business development in the Southwest-has a more tranquil meaning: the hills. Its “battles” are confined to the day-to-day business dealings of the 400 large and small companies headquartered there.

The 12,000-acre, 20-square-mile business development located just west of Stemmons Freeway between Loop 12 and LBJ Freeway was conceived by Ben H. Carpenter and Dan C. Williams in 1971. The corporate roll call there includes three of the world’s 10 largest industrial corporations: General Motors, IBM and Caltex Petroleum. Three other large firms-Allstate Insurance, The Associates and Bozell & Jacobs-were among the first to conduct business here.

But Las Colinas did not enjoy a Cinderella beginning. Many of its buildings remained all but vacant until January 1983, when corporations desiring to take advantage of an improving economy began to inspect and research Carpenter’s dream. By the summer of 1983 a record 1.3 million square feet of space had been leased.

Along with the marketing teams of Southland Financial Corp. (the parent company of Las Colinas Corp.), Irving Mayor Bobby Raper played an active role in recruiting companies to relocate to Las Colinas. Initially, Raper needed to be convinced that it was a feasible project: “I was absolutely skeptical in the beginning. There was nothing out there but Hackberry Ranch and Brahman cattle. Now, 11 years later, my skepticism is gone. It’s exactly as he [Ben Carpenter] said it would be built. Everything that you see is a reflection of Ben Carpenter and his family. Everything was done first-class. They paid their own way . . . Everything was put in at their own expense. More than $40 million in improvements were turned over to the City of Irving. There were the most stringent architectural controls in the country. Because of that, they have kept everything at the highest caliber.”

According to Ron Witten at M/PF Research (a real estate, consulting and research firm), the North Irving sector, which includes Las Colinas, has been one of the three leading sectors in space absorption in the past five years. (The other two are the Far North Dal-las/LBJ corridor and downtown.) The latest survey conducted by Witten (spring of ’83 to fall of ’83) showed that 612,000 square feet of space had been absorbed in the North Irving market. For that period, Las Colinas had the single strongest absorption level in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Witten predicts that by the fall of 1984,1.5 million square feet of multi-tenant space will be completed. More than 1.1 million square feet, he projects, will be absorbed. Las Colinas is holding its own in terms of supply and demand, even though new construction continues to flood the market. There is a great deal of space that still needs to be leased, Witten says, but that isn’t a reflection on Las Colinas’ ability to lease. “There’s just an oversupply [of space],” he says.

Bob Kaminski, a partner with Lincoln Property Co., agrees with Witten’s findings: “All the indications out there [in Las Colinas] are very good, and the space could very well be absorbed in the next few months.”

Real estate developer Harlan Crow, a partner with Trammell Crow Co., says, “The Las Colinas area is a mixed bag of some areas that are hot and some areas that are not so hot. Our company’s experience there is good, as demonstrated by the fact that we’re developing yet another project.” Crow’s building, the Texas Commerce Bank, located at Highway 114 and Rochelle in the Urban Center, will open its doors in September. The bank, which will move from 111 Irving Blvd., will be the largest bank in Las Colinas, with more than $200 million in assets. (A de novo bank will remain at the Irving Boulevard location.) The move, says P.W. Calloway, vice president of marketing for the bank, was prompted by the competitive business climate in Las Colinas: “This will give us a better chance to do business with large corporations. We’ll have the capability to service both large and small companies . . . Obviously, there’s more growth coming in that market [Las Col-inas] than downtown.”

“Las Colinas is absorbing space faster than a lot of American cities, which is why we think of it as a city,” says Wayne B. Swearingen, chairman of the Dallas-based Swearingen Co., which researches and publishes the Swear-ingen Report, a $150-a-copy publication that informs nationwide subscribers about the office markets in Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio and Tulsa. “Every major corporation that has relocated to the Southwest has considered Las Colinas to be at the top of its list because, for the long haul, it’s the place to be. Its proximity to the airport and the prestigious surroundings have made it a very attractive place to do business,” says Swearingen.

D/FW airport is one of the major reasons why, in 1976, The Associates, the cornerstone of Gulf + Western Financial Services Group, relocated from South Bend, Indiana, to become the first national organization in Las Col-inas. “At that time,” says Gulf+Western chairman Reece A. Overcash Jr., “there were only The Associates, mesquite trees and jack rabbits.” Executive Vice President John H. Lomax says, “We were the pioneers out here. We looked at 14 major cities before moving here.” Because of its proximity to the airport (The Associates is an international company with business in the Far East and Europe as well as in the United States), qualified employees and the tax advantages in Texas, Las Colinas beat out such cities as New York and Chicago. At first, The Associates, which constructed its own building, was at a disadvantage by not being in the mainstream of the downtown business community, but in hindsight, Lomax says: “The advantages outweigh the disadvantages. In fact, we were so pleased with our success here that we built an additional 400,000-square-foot building [the new International Place at Highway 114 and Wingren Road]. Our example has been followed by a number of people. Good neighbors attract good neighbors.”

Swearingen says that the increase in office-space absorption is a result of original tenants who moved to Las Col-inas several years ago and now are beginning to expand their operations. “When a corporation moves in, it has a ripple effect,” says Swearingen. “In fact, for every square foot of space a corporation uses, an additional 4 square feet is leased by service-oriented companies that serve those larger firms. In effect, smaller companies are following the major corporations to Las Colinas.”

Herbert Weitzman, president of the commercial/retail division of Henry S. Miller Co., agrees: “Las Colinas is proving to be true to our expectations. The stores we’re bringing in are filling immediate retail needs. Those retail businesses will serve the office building market and the anticipated housing market.



BUT THIS PROCESS was no accident. Ben Carpenter’s original plan called for a “properly balanced community of diversified uses” within an all-inclusive business community. His blueprint has started to become a reality for several Las Colinas entrepreneurs – people such as William Caton, Pamela Carroll and Barbara Hildenbrand- who are finding the same conducive business climate as their larger counterparts.

Caton, a CPA, started an accounting firm in Las Colinas last June after deciding that the business environment was healthy enough to warrant such a move. Caton had split his seven-year tenure at Touche Ross & Co. between the audit and tax departments with an eye toward starting his own firm.

Caton faced a major decision when he laid the groundwork for his firm. His search for prestigious, accessible office space led him to Far North Dallas and, eventually, to Las Colinas. “I was told to go as far north in Dallas as possible, but I wanted to go somewhere where people have a feel for helping each other,” he says. “There is a certain kind of camaraderie out here.”

Caton and his associate, Pamela Carroll (who also worked at Touche Ross), offer income tax and estate tax planning.

What impresses Caton the most about Las Colinas is the willingness of businesses there to help each other, which he says can be especially critical for a small business trying to get established: “Most businesses will seek help from another in Las Colinas before going outside the area,” he says. “It’s on a reciprocal basis. I don’t think transactions will become all-inclusive here, but perhaps 60 or 70 percent of a company’s dealing can be done within this area, depending on the nature of the business.”

According to Carroll, the interaction between individuals from large and small firms in Las Colinas is stimulated by functions sponsored by the Irving Chamber of Commerce and the Las Colinas Sports Club. “These events are set up to enable people to meet others,” she says. “Strasburger & Price has introduced us to several contacts. That’s our business: meeting people.”

Caton also says that the progressive coexistence of giant corporations and small businesses represents the wave of the future, and that corporate movers and shakers actually identify with the predicament of the small firms.

To start, Caton secured a capitalization loan from InterFirst/Las Colinas, while Carroll managed to get her loan from Texas American Bank/Las Colinas. “To give you some idea of what a good business environment this is, my bank gave me two years to pay off the loan, but I paid it off in just six months,” says Caton.



BARBARA HILDENBRAND began her executive suite service in March 1980, and the growth of her business has rivaled that of the Irving development. In fact, Hildenbrand, creator and president of Hildenbrand Associates, watched part of that growth from her own office, witnessing the ascending buildings to the east and the expanding Las Colinas Country Club to the north.

“It was almost empty when I started,” says Hildenbrand, who subleases space to small, start-up companies and branch offices of larger firms. Her service also provides typing, telephone answering and Telex transmissions. “Besides The Associates’ building, the one I’m in [4201 Wingren] was the only one here when I started, and about 70 percent of what is here was just a dream at that time.”

John J. Dermody Associates, a firm that provides in-house publications and marketing services, established an office with Hildenbrand for the purpose of serving Caltex, just as it had been doing in New York before the petroleum giant relocated its world headquarters here.

The executive suite concept has spread in Las Colinas, but Hildenbrand remembers the initial stages of her venture, when everything appeared threatening. Just to start her business, Hildenbrand generated capital by borrowing against the value of her car and putting up a savings account for collateral.

The struggle continued during her first year, which she remembers as “a lot of empty hours.” Her 5,400-square-foot space was inhabited by just three companies, and she was answering only 10 telephone lines. Hildenbrand was the company’s sole employee during that first year until she broke even and, shortly thereafter, turned a profit, which she immediately sank back into the firm.

Today, she has a new space with 6,200 square feet; her 24 suites are occupied by 20 companies, and two employees handle 90 telephone lines.