Could growth depend on creating urban fabric?
By: J. David Chapman/November 3, 2016
I had the opportunity to attend the 2016 Urban Land Institute Fall Meeting in Dallas. The opening session was titled “Fundamentals of Attracting and Keeping Companies” and was moderated by legendary Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach and KDC Real Estate CEO Steve Van Amburgh.
State Farm is constructing a 2-million-square-foot building and moving 8,000 employees to Richardson, Texas. Toyota USA is building 2 million square feet and moving 5,000 employees to Plano, Texas, while JPMorgan Chase is building 1 million square feet and moving 10,000 employees there to a new development called Legacy West. Liberty Mutual just completed a 900,000-square-foot building at Legacy West and has moved 5,000 employees. Legacy West in Plano has more than 5 million square feet now under construction and will employ over 21,000 people by the end of 2017. The executives responsible for the new facilities spoke candidly in a panel discussion with Staubach and Van Amburgh about why they chose those north Texas locations.
Our city leadership, as well as those of us in real estate in the Oklahoma City and Tulsa metropolitan areas, would do well to pay attention to their comments as to what these companies are looking for in corporate and regional office locations. The takeaway – the suburbs are not dead. Without exception, all these companies relocated to suburban communities. In fact, the growth in the north Texas DFW area has almost exclusively been in the suburbs.
These executives all said corporation relocation is about people. They move where they can attract and retain employees. They are looking for live/work/play urban infrastructure. These suburbs, or developers in these suburbs, have built an urban destination fabric with multiple-use development. The employees of these companies want to walk to work or use public transportation and meet colleagues after work for drinks and dinner.
Yes, proper tax incentives and schools were important, but most of our suburbs already meet those requirements. The opportunity for our suburban leadership lies in understanding, planning, and implementing this type of urban fabric, including good density and multi-use zoning that employees want. Just as in the DFW area, the future of Oklahoma City metropolitan growth will likely depend on the suburban cities to gain expertise in creating this urban fabric.
J. David Chapman is an associate professor of finance and real estate at the University of Central Oklahoma (jchapman7@uco.edu).