Why did corporate headquarters expand north? (Houston, Dallas: home, college, subsidized)

[lepoisson]

One thing that I find unique about the DFW metroplex is that a lot of the company headquarters and large employers set up shop north of Dallas, about 25 miles away in Plano and Frisco areas. This is quite different from other cities like Chicago, New York, Seattle, and San Francisco where most corporate headquarters are smack dab in the middle of downtown in a tall office building.

Is there a reason why so many companies built their headquarters in Plano and Frisco rather than in downtown Dallas and Fort Worth? Did these companies want a large campus rather than being stuffed in an existing office building? Or did Plano/Frisco give them some kind of sweet deal on taxes and land?

I wonder what these downtowns would look like if they all of the corporations rather than Plano and Frisco?

[jbb303]

Cheap land and subsidized sprawl via freeways and toll roads.

[NP78]

Originally Posted by lepoisson

One thing that I find unique about the DFW metroplex is that a lot of the company headquarters and large employers set up shop north of Dallas, about 25 miles away in Plano and Frisco areas. This is quite different from other cities like Chicago, New York, Seattle, and San Francisco where most corporate headquarters are smack dab in the middle of downtown in a tall office building.

Is there a reason why so many companies built their headquarters in Plano and Frisco rather than in downtown Dallas and Fort Worth? Did these companies want a large campus rather than being stuffed in an existing office building? Or did Plano/Frisco give them some kind of sweet deal on taxes and land?

I wonder what these downtowns would look like if they all of the corporations rather than Plano and Frisco?

It’s not really that different, maybe just a bit more extreme. Seattle and SF are great examples. Where are Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc? They aren’t downtown.
They are in Mountain View/Palo Alto or Bellevue/Redmond. “Silicon Valley” isn’t in downtown San Francisco or Oakland after all.

Los Angeles has Irvine/Orange County as an equivalent. Even the Denver Tech Center, which is partially in Denver is similar. It’s 12 miles from DTC to downtown Denver, Legacy West is 20 miles to downtown Dallas.

I am not as familiar with Chicago, and maybe being an older city makes it a little different, but DFW’s pattern in that regard is not really unique.

[ms3000]

Because their employees rather live in Collin county.

[lepoisson]

Originally Posted by NP78

It’s not really that different, maybe just a bit more extreme. Seattle and SF are great examples. Where are Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc? They aren’t downtown.
They are in Mountain View/Palo Alto or Bellevue/Redmond. “Silicon Valley” isn’t in downtown San Francisco or Oakland after all.

Los Angeles has Irvine/Orange County as an equivalent. Even the Denver Tech Center, which is partially in Denver is similar. It’s 12 miles from DTC to downtown Denver, Legacy West is 20 miles to downtown Dallas.

I am not as familiar with Chicago, and maybe being an older city makes it a little different, but DFW’s pattern in that regard is not really unique.

Seattle has a ton of headquarters downtown or near downtown. Amazon, Starbucks, Nordstroms. SF does too with Lyft, Wells Fargo, GAP, Salesforce.

I can't think of a single company that has a headquarters in downtown Fort Worth. It used to be Radio Shack. It's a real shame because DT Fort Worth has so much potential. All they need are a few more corporations and that will bring in the retail and more foot traffic.

For Dallas, all I can think of is AT&T.

All of the big players in DFW are in Irving or Plano.

[ParaguaneroSwag]

Originally Posted by lepoisson

Seattle has a ton of headquarters downtown or near downtown. Amazon, Starbucks, Nordstroms. SF does too with Lyft, Wells Fargo, GAP, Salesforce.

I can't think of a single company that has a headquarters in downtown Fort Worth. It used to be Radio Shack. It's a real shame because DT Fort Worth has so much potential. All they need are a few more corporations and that will bring in the retail and more foot traffic.

For Dallas, all I can think of is AT&T.

All of the big players in DFW are in Irving or Plano.

It seems companies looking to expand into Texas want laid back culture. Even Houston which people seem to dog on Dallas for having all their stuff in the suburbs also has most of its headquarters in the suburbs, particularly Memorial/EC and Woodlands/Spring.

Austin on the other hand puts it all downtown, but its also a generally more laid back place to begin with.

[Leonard123]

Originally Posted by lepoisson

One thing that I find unique about the DFW metroplex is that a lot of the company headquarters and large employers set up shop north of Dallas, about 25 miles away in Plano and Frisco areas. This is quite different from other cities like Chicago, New York, Seattle, and San Francisco where most corporate headquarters are smack dab in the middle of downtown in a tall office building.

Is there a reason why so many companies built their headquarters in Plano and Frisco rather than in downtown Dallas and Fort Worth? Did these companies want a large campus rather than being stuffed in an existing office building? Or did Plano/Frisco give them some kind of sweet deal on taxes and land?

I wonder what these downtowns would look like if they all of the corporations rather than Plano and Frisco?

Frisco doesn't have that much actually. The only cities outside Dallas with much of a corporate presence are Addison, Plano and Irving.

Originally Posted by jbb303

Cheap land and subsidized sprawl via freeways and toll roads.

That land is not cheap. They seem to deliberately choose the most expensive properties they can. I'm still kind of puzzled why they invest so much in these large, upscale spaces when most of their workers are remote.

[lepoisson]

Originally Posted by Leonard123

Frisco doesn't have that much actually. The only cities outside Dallas with much of a corporate presence are Addison, Plano and Irving.



That land is not cheap. They seem to deliberately choose the most expensive properties they can. I'm still kind of puzzled why they invest so much in these large, upscale spaces when most of their workers are remote.

I found an article from 2009 saying that Plano was luring in companies with tax breaks.

https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/business...reaks/2120079/

I suspect that's the main reason why corporations set up shop in Plano rather than elsewhere in the Metroplex.

[TurtleCreek80]

For Plano specifically, tax breaks and available to build huge corporate campuses

JCPenney relo’d here in the 1980’s from midtown Manhattan - the upgrade in lifestyle was tremendous for employees who made the move. They could either finally a family sized home or eliminate a 1.5-3 hour daily commute out to the Tri state suburbs.

I would bet that most F500 company HQ’s are in suburbia or smaller cities, not in the downtown of major cities. WalMart in in Bentonville, AR. MasterCard & PepsiCo are in the NYC suburbs. Kraft Food, AllState, Walgreens & several others are all in the Chicago burbs. Companies want to be where workers want to live.

[lepoisson]

Originally Posted by TurtleCreek80

For Plano specifically, tax breaks and available to build huge corporate campuses

JCPenney relo’d here in the 1980’s from midtown Manhattan - the upgrade in lifestyle was tremendous for employees who made the move. They could either finally a family sized home or eliminate a 1.5-3 hour daily commute out to the Tri state suburbs.

I would bet that most F500 company HQ’s are in suburbia or smaller cities, not in the downtown of major cities. WalMart in in Bentonville, AR. MasterCard & PepsiCo are in the NYC suburbs. Kraft Food, AllState, Walgreens & several others are all in the Chicago burbs. Companies want to be where workers want to live.

I guess it depends on what type of workers you want and what type of company you are. If you are a tech company or some kind of startup, you probably want young workers right out of college which means you need to be in the city. Most young people want to live in the city and don't want to commute to the suburbs. That's why McDonalds moved.

A company like Dr. Pepper has a lot of blue collar workers and those people want to live in the suburbs and don't want to commute into the city every day.

The most recent trend does seem to be companies moving from a suburban area to an urban area, but I'm wondering if COVID put a halt to that plan.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/02/b...-the-city.html