Southern Dallas County Finally Gets Megaproject Momentum

Long known for its abundant industrial space and data centers, southern Dallas County has several projects on the way that developers hope will blaze a trail of commercial and residential growth for the historically underserved area of the Metroplex.

“There are things happening a lot slower than we would like, but there is momentum happening just based on the sheer growth of our region,” said Latosha Herron Bruff, Dallas Regional Chamber's senior vice president of opportunity and impact.

First came Cawley Partners’ eye-popping purchase of 5,200 acres in the tiny town of Ferris, 20 miles south of Dallas. That project is expected to bring as many as 5,000 new homes, 2,000 acres of data center campuses and around 1,000 acres of manufacturing and warehouse space to the area. 

Hoque Global then broke ground on the $1B University Hills mixed-use project next to the University of North Texas at Dallas in May. The 270-acre development will bring hundreds of homes, 1,500 apartments, 1.5M SF of commercial space, a hotel and a stadium that could lure a professional sports team to southern Dallas. 

Those developments are expected to be catalysts for an area that has seen its industrial growth far outpace the multifamily and office sectors during the last half decade. 

There are more than 138,000 manufacturing workers in the southern portion of the county who live near the Inland Port — a 7,500-acre industrial hub east of Interstate 35 and along I-20 and I-45 with distribution facilities for Amazon, FedEx, Home Depot and L'Oreal, according to SouthernDallasCounty.com.

The DRC launched the website more than three years ago as an online resource designed to spark investment south of Interstate 30 and create jobs for an area it says has untapped labor potential. The website shows that the area also has more than 554,000 managerial and back-office support workers living within 45 minutes of the city of Dallas.

Despite that immense pipeline of workers, developer investment in the southern area of the county hasn’t caught fire like DRC hoped. The majority of residents in southern Dallas County drive north for nearly an hour to work.

Since 2020, almost 50M SF of industrial space has been added to the submarket, according to Colliers data. But the area’s total inventory of multifamily units has grown less than 12% since 2023, and the office market has remained virtually unchanged since at least 2021. Colliers’ first-quarter report showed the area had around 3.8M SF of office inventory and nothing in the pipeline.

“So much has been promised to southern Dallas County and underdelivered, so once you see movement around these big developments, there becomes this interest in, ‘Oh, this is really happening,’” Herron Bruff said.

Longtime Dallas investors Hoque Global had been mainly focused on downtown before the University Hills project came about, Vice President Arthur Santa-Maria said.

“It's an area that has been under-invested and sort of left behind over the years,” Santa-Maria said. “It needs that kind of catalytic-minded investment to really make a transformation.”

Being one of the first big investments in southern Dallas County is a risk because there’s nothing to model a project on and use as a comp for institutional investment partners. 

“You've got to go out on a limb and believe in the community, believe in the fundamentals and create that market,” Santa-Maria said.

The blank slate presents an opportunity for younger developers like Onu Ventures CEO and founder Mikial Onu to create a name for themselves.

Onu is developing The Adaline, a 12-acre mixed-use project featuring a market, retail space and housing near the corner of Bonnie View Road and Interstate 20. Onu said he believes it’s just a matter of time before the southern portion of the county experiences the kind of growth the northern suburbs have had.

“Now's the time for developers to really take a look at southern Dallas,” Onu said. “We need private investment down there, because there are strong fundamentals in this market.”

While the prosperity of areas of Dallas north of State Highway 12 are reliant on the continued growth of the central business district, Onu said southern Dallas County has its own economy.

“Southern Dallas has the built-in, blue-collar workforce and offers similar proximity to Downtown Dallas,” Onu said. 

The momentum in southern Dallas County has been noticed by outside observers — DRC's economic development team is working on seven different projects that could bring a combined 2,000 new jobs to Southern Dallas County.

Herron Bruff couldn't share specific companies involved but said they were in the technology, life sciences, automotive and solar industries. Lone Star PACE Chief Operating Officer Glenn Silva characterized the area as “heating up.”  

"There is momentum in movement, so once we start to see this movement, it only takes one to start gaining the interest," Herron Bruff said.

North Texas’s passion for sports could also help southern Dallas County realize its growth potential. Hoque Global is actively searching for a pro sports franchise to anchor the stadium component of the University Hills project to attract further investment, Santa-Maria said. The stadium could also serve the southern Dallas County community’s school districts and colleges.

The area also scored a corporate relocation earlier this year when Major League Cricket announced it would move its corporate headquarters from San Francisco to Grand Prairie.

Santa-Maria said he’s seen the communities in southern Dallas County step up to the challenge of expansion by offering incentives such as tax increment financing districts to help attract developers, as well as less glamorous investments in infrastructure like drainage, sewers and water lines. 

“All that stuff has to be there before development comes in a big way,” Santa-Maria said. “These are all just recipe pieces of the pie that the northern communities have done.”

Corporations have taken notice as more projects have started to move into the region. Wilmer and Mesquite landed major solar sector projects in 2023 that brought around 3,000 skilled jobs to the area. McKinley Packaging opened a 500K SF manufacturing plant in Lancaster late last year that brought another 125 jobs. Provident Data Centers and American Real Estate Partners' PowerHouse Data Centers announced plans to build one of the largest data center campuses in the U.S. on 768 acres in Grand Prairie earlier this year.

But Herron Bruff and Santa-Maria agreed those projects aren’t enough to change the perception of the southern portion of the county.  

“​​Southern Dallas has all the potential of developing in [an] impactful and generation-building way,” Santa-Maria said. “We are excited about being the first in what we’re doing, but … catalyst means something else has to come after.”