Dive Brief:
- The once sleepy North Texas town of Frisco is currently experiencing a boom level of growth, as characterized by its "$5 billion mile" group of developments, according to the Dallas Morning News.
- Anchoring the $950,000-per-square-foot stretch of mixed-use projects is the new Dallas Cowboys headquarters, which opened last month.
- City officials estimate that there is another $2 billion of commercial construction underway in other areas of Frisco, which has seen an explosion of development (60% of total area) in recent years.
Dive Insight:
Unlike its southern counterparts in Houston, where development has stalled because of plunging oil prices, the current building boom in Frisco has far outpaced prerecession activity, according to the Morning News. From retail to residential to hotel and commercial office space, the five developments either planned, underway or complete along the $5 billion mile has them all. But even without the future growth, Frisco has grown by 4.5 million square feet of retail and restaurant space already.
And it's not just Frisco. Jim Gandy, president of the Frisco Economic Development Corp., told the Morning News that areas at the north end of the Dallas North Tollway are "exploding like never before." Jerry Jones made news late last year with the announcement of a $1 billion 500-acre mixed use development in Prosper, TX, just 25 miles north of Dallas and only a few miles from Frisco. At the time of the announcement, Jones and his partners had just started construction on the development's 300,000-square-foot shopping center.
