With Dallas-Fort Worth maintaining its stranglehold on the No. 1 spot for corporate relocations, office demand continues to grow in the quickly expanding Collin County area.
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High-profile relocations like AT&T and Samsung Electronics America have helped turn Collin County into an office hot spot, and massive projects like the 2,500-acre Fields master-planned development in Frisco and the Dallas Stars’ $3B sports and entertainment district are set to greatly expand the area’s inventory.
“Office went away for a little bit, but it's back,” KDC Senior Vice President of Development Aarica Mims said during Bisnow's Collin County State of the Market event Oct. 15 at the Sheraton McKinney Hotel.
Employers are ready to sign longer-term deals again, but Mims said they want experiences at their locations that will help entice employees back to the office.
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The flight-to-quality trend has powered office leasing and development throughout DFW in recent years, and Gensler principal Barry Hand said those top-tier buildings are what companies are looking for throughout the metro.
“Whether it's the hybridized environment or great parking amenities with concierge services … that's where the more progressive hiring employers are going to be,” Hand said, noting that the Fields project in Frisco is really taking the flight-to-quality trend to the next level.
The Karahan Cos. and KDC recently announced plans to develop around 11M SF of build-to-suit office space in the luxury Fields project in Frisco. Fields was co-developed and is owned in partnership with Karahan and Hunt Realty Investments, along with investors Chief Partners and Cross Tie Capital.
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The Stars' district at Plano's The Shops at Willow Bend Mall also plans to add up to 2M SF of Class-A office space to the county. Plano Director of Economic Development Michael Talley said in June that the additional office space will help the city land a bigger share of corporations looking to relocate to DFW.
Beyond corporate relocations, companies in Collin County are also expanding their footprints in the area.
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While companies with a presence in North Texas have long had satellite offices in Collin County, many of those have turned into front-facing locations as the population grew in the northern suburbs. In addition to being closer to customers in those growing cities, these moves also put companies closer to where many of their employees actually live.
AT&T’s impending move to Plano is a perfect example of that. The telecommunications titan’s new 2.3M SF Plano campus is expected to offer a shorter commute for a majority of AT&T’s DFW personnel, a company spokesperson said in January.
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"That's a huge win for Collin [County], and they're poised to see more of that," Ranger Tax Consulting partner Alex Pace said of AT&T’s upcoming relocation from Downtown Dallas.
JPMorgan North Texas Market Executive Graham Perry, who works at the company’s regional headquarters in Plano's Legacy West development, said he regularly gets inquiries from people asking about the Collin County area for possible moves. Cities like Frisco, Plano and McKinney are usually near the top of companies’ lists due to their high quality of life, pro-business environment and an existing workforce that can support growth.
"Talent is everything behind the growth in Collin County," Hand said. "A lot of the corporate relocations that you're seeing are because that's where the talent they want is."
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However, the responsiveness of local officials to the needs of relocating businesses is also hugely important. Being able to get needs addressed quickly is refreshing for companies coming out of California, where government officials can feel hard to reach and nonresponsive, Allen EDC CEO Dan Bowman said.
Mims said it is also important that the county is intentional about its growth, as it does have the available land that will continue to attract new corporations to relocate. With that growth comes more traffic, so it’s vital to maintain infrastructure to keep commute times under control since that is part of what has pushed companies out of Dallas County.
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While office space is available in the county, it’s going quickly. So the competition will be fierce among companies seeking a quick move, as much of the bulk of new development is still years away from delivery.
Many companies eyeing a move to the region will have to decide between existing space or a build-to-suit option.
"If you're coming into town and you're looking for 250K SF in Collin County, there's probably four Class-A options that are on the ground today," Mims said.
“There's a lot of really amazing Class-A office buildings that are in the works … that I think will be taken up very quickly, given the office demand,” Mims said.
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