Last week I made my way down to Dallas for the National Association of Real Estate Editors conference. Between the seminars and panel discussions on the nation’s housing market and real estate trends, I got the opportunity to tour, in a helicopter, new developments in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Dallas, Fort Worth and other Texas towns are among the nation’s leaders in job and population growth. Unlike much of the U.S., most Texas housing markets have lost little ground, if any. Commercial and residential real estate development is booming in and around metro areas, while downtown Dallas expects a population of more than 10,000 people in the next two years. More people moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth than to any other metropolitan area in the United States last year, according to a new U.S. Census Bureau report. The report cited that population there increased by 162,250 between July 1, 2006, and July 1, 2007.

Development boom

Driving the development boom in the Fort Worth area is AllianceTexas. Alliance is a 17,000-acre, master-planned industrial, residential and retail development of Ross Perot Jr.’s Hillwood company. The award-winning development is a budding area of commercial, retail, residential and recreational spaces. The Alliance residential sector offers properties in the price range from affordable $150,000 single-family homes to multimillion luxury abodes.

My helicopter tour of the entire development site took off from the 2,500-acre Circle T Ranch. With its lushly green rolling hills, the ranch is home to a herd of buffalo, cows, horses and a lone camel (which reportedly was a gift to the Perot family). As we canvassed over an area of new residential homes, the pilot pointed out to me a sprawling mansion still under construction. The property just happened to belong to Terry Bradshaw, the Hall of Fame football legend and Fox-TV NFL commentator.

Still growing
Flying over this massive 17,000-acre development, was like watching a miniature city blooming. Coming from a developed city like Chicago, it’s fascinating to see what once were stretches of empty ranch land transformed into a bustling metropolis. Today, the development encompasses more than 28 million square feet, 150 corporate residents, 27,000-plus employees and more than 6,200 single-family homes. Because of the continued customer demand for office and residential space at Alliance, Robert Folzenlogen, director of planning and design with Hillwood Properties, said the company plans to continue their expansion and growth of the area.

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