Since the early '60s, the Perot family has been a major driver of Dallas business, with its fingers in oil and gas, real estate and tech. Today, the father/son duo of H. Ross Perot and Ross Perot Jr. is still taking chances and changing Dallas' physical and business landscape. Here are some of the Perots' biggest deals of 2015.
Last month, the residential arm (Hillwood Communities) of Ross Jr.'s Hillwood purchased 400 acres at the northeast corner of Coit Road and Frontier Parkway in the Collin County town of Celina for its new $500M, 1,250-home community that will include parks, walking trails, and sites for new retail and restaurants. This summer, Facebook broke ground on land purchased from Hillwood to build a data center complex at Texas 170 and Park Vista Boulevard, just east of the Cabela’s store on I-35W. Earlier this year, Ross Jr. and his dad (pictured with Wynne/Jackson chairman & CEO Clyde Jackson at the ULI awards) were presented with the Urban Land Institute’s North Texas District Council inaugural Vision Award, which honors individuals who have made an outstanding contribution in real estate development, or a related area. Ross Sr. is credited with the creation of the master planned Legacy business park in Plano while his son is the chairman of Hillwood (one of the top real estate investors in the US and developer of the 18,000-acre AllianceTexas industrial airport and intermodal park he founded in 1988).
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Then, there’s the new 200k SF Hillwood HQ and office for the Perot investments and family on a six-acre tract at Turtle Creek Boulevard and Bowen Street in Uptown Dallas, slated for a late 2016 opening. Last month, the Perot family closed on the purchase of an additional three-acre parcel across the street at the southwest corner of Turtle Creek Boulevard and Cedar Springs Road. Hillwood Urban will be managing the new property and exploring potential development opportunities, which could include office, residential, hotel or restaurant development. Hillwood Urban is another Hillwood offshoot, created last summer to pursue mixed-use, corporate build-to-suits and corporate office developments. Pictured: The Perot family at the Perot Museum: Carolyn Perot Rathjen, Nancy Perot Mulford, Ross, Margot Perot, Ross Jr., Suzanne Perot McGee and Katherine Perot Reeves.
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Not content with conventional real estate deals, Ross Jr. is venturing back into tech with the recent investment in PICKUP, an on-demand delivery service featuring “good guys and their pickup trucks" through Perot Jain. He says it’s the type of company his investment firm was created to support: an emerging tech-based company with high potential. The funding will be used to continue development of PICKUP’s tech platform, expand the service regionally and enable management to increase its talent pool. Then, there's his day job as chairman of The Perot Cos, where he manages various Perot family businesses that include real estate, oil and gas, and financial investments.
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