2013: The Year Records Were Broken

REDP ended the year with 36 corporate relocations and expansions that are expected to create or retain 11,278 Richardson jobs and involve the occupancy of 3,095,938 square feet of non-retail commercial space. Those totals are all-time records for Richardson and approximately 300% higher than historical averages.

State Farm’s Richardson developments had much to do with the record-breaking totals. With a 1,520,000 SF under construction, the Bloomington, Illinois-based company has made temporary leases in four other Richardson office spaces comprising nearly that total. As State Farm begins to occupy its new campus in November of this year through mid-year 2015, a major question for the commercial real estate team is how much, if any, of its short-term leases will the company convert to longer tenancies.

Another Richardson phenomenon in 2013 was the rise of the Medicare supplemental insurance companies. In June, Extend Health leased the balance of 116,843 SF in Peloton’s wildly successful remake of 250 East Arapaho, announcing that it would be adding 800 employees to its previous 450 Richardson headcount. Then, later that month, United HealthCare brought its Connections Medicare supplement business and another 800 employees to 77,181 SF at Granite’s 2220 Campbell Creek Blvd. Almost out of nowhere, Richardson is host to a thriving 2,000-worker financial services cluster built around Medicare insurance.

Rounding out the users of financial services technology were IQor, a business process management company, that opened a projected 700-employee service center near the Arapaho DART station at 1122 Alma, Safeguard Properties, doing what its name says for local financial institutions like BoA, Liberty Mutual , which ended a long search by nabbing 42,534 SF at JP Realty’s 2400 Lakeside. Interestingly, a key deciding factor for all of the above companies was the landlord’s ability to provide much more than the standard four parking spaces per 1,000 SF of leased space. In IQor’s case, proximity to the DART rail line was also of paramount importance. The company estimates that 20% of its workforce arrives via DART rail.

Late in the year, Associa, America’s largest property owner association management company founded 34 years ago by now State Senator John Carona, took 62,500 SF in Fobare Commercial’s spectacularly remodeled 1225 Alma for a new Shared Services center. The new center will enable the company to take full advantage of powerful new technologies to support its business model.    

The creators of technology were also a major part of Richardson’s 2013 growth. Samsung’s telecom arm continued to expand beyond its 155,000 local HQ at 1301 Lookout Drive and into pockets of available space in nearby office buildings. Software developers Trade Station Technologies, Iphotonix, Metaswitch, Edmentum and Interlegis moved or expanded within the city.

And as if Richardson wasn’t healthy enough, AdvoCare, the vitamin and nutritional supplement company with Drew Brees as it national spokesperson, took advantage of some of the city’s remaining premier light industrial land at Shiloh Business Park, and is working with KDC to build a 260,000-square-foot office/warehouse. The project is split 235,000 SF of warehouse and 25,000 SF of office and is scheduled for completion in July.

As 2014 begins to unfold, the forward momentum is Richardson evident all over town, from the State Farm complex that is beginning to dominate the northern skyline, to the new educational and residence additions at UT Dallas, to the recently unveiled CityLine mixed-use development, to the resurgence of the Heights area with Alamo Drafthouse serving as the beacon. At the Richardson Economic Development Partnership, while we are looking forward to another banner year, we are also grateful to all who made 2013 one for the record books.