A ANATOMY OF A DEAL
FIDELITY
Ross Perot Jr. and his Hillwood real estate development company acquired the 2,500acre Circle T Ranch in 1993. The big-picture vision has always been one of high-end corporate campuses nestled into and respecting the property’s natural beauty. “That land doesn’t look like anything else, literally, in North Texas,” says Mike Berry, president of Hillwood Properties and Hillwood Urban. “It’s so unique. It was kept up over the years, beautifully, by the Hunts who ran it as a very upscale horse operation.” Over time, the land was cleared but big, beautiful post oaks were showcased and allowed to flourish, enhancing the ranch’s natural beauty, which includes a lake and rolling hills. Hillwood believed Circle T Ranch would develop slowly as a quality master-planned corporate campus environment. They were willing to be patient. With Las Colinas just down Texas 114 to the east and Legacy booming in Plano, Hillwood knew it would take time for development to head west. Eventually, growth did come west, and, as a result, the Circle T Ranch has entered the mix as a sought-after corporate campus site. Schwab began scouting the Dallas area for an expansion in December 2012, and by late 2013, it had zeroed in on the ranch in Westlake, a small town of roughly 1,200 residents that already was home to Fidelity and Deloitte University. Although it remains committed to its
5 0 / D A L L A S - F O R T W O R T H R E A L E S TAT E R E V I E W
headquarters in San Francisco, Schwab decided about 10 years ago to reduce its headcount there and expand in other select cities after strategizing a long-term growth plan. Schwab, which has several employment centers around the nation, chose Denver and Dallas as expansion sites. “It was all about demographics —where can we find the right employees that fit the Schwab culture and have the experience and expertise we need?” says Glenn Cooper, senior vice president of corporate real estate at Schwab. “Several cities arose in our research, but Dallas clearly came up as No. 1.” Schwab tapped the expertise of CBRE’s Josh White to help it explore options around Dallas, and company officials visited Circle T for the first time in late 2013, meeting with the entire team at Hillwood, which is developing the ranch site. “We spent the good part of a year getting to know each other,” Cooper recalls. “It was a negotiation, but it was also getting to know each other and making sure we were the right fit for them,” Cooper says. “It was unique in that way.”
FIDELITY KICKS OFF DEVELOPMENT
Hillwood originally envisioned a regional mall at the property’s most visible corner, the intersection of state highways 114 and 170. Hillwood and General Growth entered into a partnership to develop the mall there while allowing for other development within the ranch’s core. “We had ideas, always heavy with open space. We thought about golf, a resort hotel, [a] low-density corporate campus. We thought about some other uses such as a wedding chapel or a winery,” Berry says. “Over time, we planned those different things, but the vision was always primarily driven by a corporate campus concept to anchor the development, kind of like the early days with Legacy, which Mr. Perot Sr. created with EDS [Electronic Data Systems].” Although the mall never got off the ground and was eventually removed from the plan, Hillwood landed Fidelity five years after buying the ranch, setting the stage for the future corporate development. “Fidelity went over and above the call of duty in terms of their respect for the land and their respect for design,” Berry says. The more than 1 million-squarefoot campus isn’t visible from Texas 114. “That was a validation that the Circle T
SUMMER 2017