It’s only 172 days 'til the Wright Amendment expiration and the implications for Dallas are huge. Already, Love Field’s economic impact hovers around $1.2B annually. We learned more about Southwest Airlines’ plans at the Downtown Dallas annual meeting Tuesday.
Southwest Airlines SVP Dave Ridley, Atmos public affairs director Sandra Doyle, Progressive Urban Management Associates prez Brad Segal, and Downtown Dallas prez and CEO John Crawford. A little history lesson in case you forgot: the Wright Amendment was basically designed to protect DFW Airport and Fort Worth-based American Airlines by restricting flights from Love Field outside the state's boundaries without a stop at another airport in Texas or neighboring state. With its lifting, Dave says Southwest will add multiple non-stops on Nov. 2 to Las Vegas, New York, Atlanta, Chicago, and DC, among others. Even more will come in 2015. (Let's take to the skies!)
Southwest's domestic market share is 25%, Dave says. Plans are to grow that even more. The airline also built a $120M training facility here that will add 100,000 hotel room nights in Dallas as employees come for training. And, we had an Oprah moment at the annual meeting: Southwest gave everyone there a $100 ticket voucher. Maybe we can snap another wing pic like this one on our way to Vegas. (And we don't even have to hide out in the wheel.)
Beyond the airport's impact on Dallas, John tells us the 40M SF downtown office space saw more than 1.5M SF of leasing activity in 2013 and has more than 40 new developments underway in Downtown. There’s also 4,000 new multifamily units under construction or planned to break ground in 2014. (So that futon you bought is all of a sudden an investment for the future.) Plus, $68M of public and private planned investment are slated for the Dallas Farmers Market.
We ran into Crescent Real Estate Equities managing director of leasing John Zogg Jr and CBRE EVP Phil Puckett. Phil tells us his world is about representing tenants Downtown and Uptown and “my world is the best it has ever been.” His most recent excitement was closing the 109k SF Gardere law firm lease as the lead tenant in John’s new Uptown building. John tells us construction on the building starts in June.
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