Dallas’ Big Boom

After the “Big D” and “little a” in the show tune refrain, the “double l” could stand for landlocked. Dallas is not a seaport, an anomaly among major cities, but it hasn’t let its lack of direct water access to the sea impede its growth. In the 1870s, an influx of rail lines served the dominant cotton and stockyard industries. The emergence of oil in the 1930s followed by the growth of engineering and telecommunications firms after World War II helped develop the prairie outpost into a strong industrial and financial center with an economy based on commerce, technology, energy, health care and medical research, transportation and logistics. Now served by five interstate highways and two major airports, the flourishing hub midway between the East and West coasts is seeing substantial additional growth. “Dallas is booming,” according to oil and gas businessman Craig Folson.

With its central location an attractive base, the “Queen City of the Southwest” boasts the third-largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies in the nation. AT&T, Alcatel, Nortel, Samsung, Sprint, Verizon and Texas Instruments are among high-tech companies based in the Texas Telecom Corridor in the north suburb of Richardson, which SmartAsset dubs the country’s fourth-best city in which to work in high tech.

While the pioneer watchword may be “Go West,” the Dallas Cowboys organization is heading north toward Frisco, developing a 91-acre site named The Star in Frisco. It will include the football team’s new six-story world headquarters building and a multiuse event center with a 12,000-seat stadium, two private practice fields and an outdoor plaza spanning nearly two acres. A 1,500-space parking garage, retail, restaurants, offices and an Omni hotel are planned for the rest of the site. In nearby Plano, Toyota is consolidating its separate American manufacturing, sales and marketing and corporate office operations into a single national headquarters set to open in 2016–17 and to employ 4,000 workers.

In the third-most popular destination for business travel in the United States, the world’s largest column-free exhibit hall, the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, offers more than a million square feet of space to host auto shows, corporate conferences, sports championships and global forums. Visitors arrive at Love Field, barely seven miles from downtown, or at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, the world’s ninth-busiest airport, boasting more acreage than the island of Manhattan. Its ongoing master plan will add Terminal F and improvements in airfield and cargo areas, parking and roadway access.

Forbes lists 23 billionaire residents in Dallas-Fort Worth, and there are more shopping centers per capita than in any other American city. Recently completed in central downtown, the $354 million AT&T Performing Arts Center includes architect Rem Koolhaas’ unconventional vertical theater and an opera house designed by Sir Norman Foster. The newly completed George W. Bush Presidential Library features interactive displays chronicling achievements of the 43rd president, who has a residence in town.

“It’s a great time to be doing business in Dallas,” declared a spokesperson for the Dallas Regional Chamber of Commerce. Job-seekers tempted to move to the region can consult the DFW Jobs Gateway on the Chamber’s website, where local businesses post available positions. An indication of the city’s outlook is the website’s advice: “Check back frequently. The region is growing quickly, and so is its demand for recruits.”

SCENIC DRIVES

For those wanting an antidote to the urban concentration, nearby excursions show a more rustic side of the city. Almost mandatory is the half-hour drive through urban sprawl to Fort Worth with its juxtaposition of old and new. Visitors can ramble through the “Old West” Fort Worth Stockyards National Historic District. Or, just a few minutes away in the Cultural District, tour the Amon Carter Museum with masterpieces of American art; the architecturally significant arches of the Kimbell Art Museum; or exhibits and works by Kiefer, Serra, Motherwell and Rothko displayed in the hushed concrete pavilions of The Modern Art Museum. Most visitors join the line to sample fajitas and margaritas at Joe T. Garcia’s popular indoor-outdoor Tex-Mex restaurant or drive over to White Settlement Road, where Angelo’s serves world-renowned barbecue.

Another heritage option is a jaunt up to Grapevine, just north of Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. The appellation is no accident: The historic town boasts a concentration of local wineries. Behind the rustic log cabins and local Victorian storefronts of Main Street, dozens of local vineyards offer tastings of new and old favorite vintages along with condiments, cheeses and chocolates.

Within the city limits, a drive around to the southeast side of White Rock Lake passes theDallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden. The grounds surrounding Rancho Encinal, the Spanish-style mansion built in 1940 for pioneer petroleum geophysicist Everette Lee DeGolyer, have been augmented and transformed into 66 acres of splendid seasonal plantings with a café, picnic areas, mini replicas of “prairie adventure” dwellings, a concert stage and gazebos. It’s a lovely place to gaze back at the city’s skyscrapers which dominate the landscape across the little lake, bringing to mind the lack of harbor the city overcame.