Hillwood, a Perot company, is one of the few, if not the only, real estate companies with development expertise and experience that encompass such a diverse product type, including arenas, high-rise condominiums, offices, single-family residential communities, distribution centers, regional malls, mixed-use urban development, call centers, multi-family, hotels, golf courses, airports, intermodal rail yards, corporate campuses and major air facilities, including hangars.
Hillwood also has introduced services that have added value and helped save costs for the companies and homeowners within its developments. These include Foreign Trade Zone expertise, employment and job training services, customs facilitation, advanced technology, property management, customer group meetings to share human resources/facility management/security knowledge, livestock management, extensive landscaping and maintenance services, transportation initiatives, government relations, community Intranet, and Triple Freeport.
Hillwood not only has been recognized as one of the top developers in the country by Commercial Property News and National Real Estate Investor magazines and one of the top residential developers in North Texas by the Dallas Business Journal, but the company is recognized for its high-profile projects and public-private ventures that bring tremendous value to its customers and partners.
The quality and dedication that Hillwood devotes to all of its projects has earned the company recognition from several prestigious organizations.
Hillwood’s first and largest development AllianceTexas received the Award for Excellence as one of the top business parks in the world from the Urban Land Institute and was named the top office industrial park in North America by the Building Owners and Managers Association.
Victory has been referred to as one of the greatest examples of urban remediation by the Environmental Protection Agency. Victory also received the prestigious Phoenix Award as one of the country’s top remediation projects and was named the top real estate development in North Texas in 2005 by the Dallas Business Journal.
Hillwood's residential projects have consistently been honored as the best communities in North Texas. The 2,300-acre Heritage project was specifically recognized for being the first residential development in Texas to incorporate fiber optics, Cat 5e wiring, shared video, instant networking capabilities and an Intranet into the community.
The Fixed Base Operation at Fort Worth Alliance Airport, managed by Hillwood's Alliance Aviation Services group, has earned ExxonMobil's top customer service award for an unprecedented 11 consecutive years. The Hillwood Land and Cattle group at Circle T Ranch has earned numerous awards, including being named one of the top ranch operations in the country, at the Fort Worth Stock Show.
Best known for its development of the $420-million American Airlines Center and Victory near downtown Dallas and the 17,000-acre AllianceTexas development located 15 miles northwest of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, Hillwood also has developed and made strategic investments in a wide array of projects across the country.
At many of these projects, Hillwood has developed facilities for many of the world's top companies, including Helen of Troy, Emerson Electric, Best Buy, Conair, Maytag, Mattel, Kohl's and General Mills.
At its AllianceTexas development, Hillwood has attracted major facilities for more than 65 companies from either the Fortune 500, Global 500 or Forbes List of Top Private Firms. These include General Motors, Ford, AIG, Home Depot, Kraft, Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen, Mercedes-Benz, Fidelity Investments, American Airlines, FedEx, AT&T and Volkswagen.
Earlier this year Hillwood entered into a partnership with Aimbridge Hospitality, Champ Development and JF Capital Advisors to develop aloft hotels, Starwood's new brand that is closely affiliated with the company's W Hotels. The partnership's first hotel, which also is the first aloft hotel in Texas, will be located in Las Colinas. Construction began in March 2007 with opening scheduled for 2008.
One of the company's newest markets is Jacksonville, Florida, where a new Asian terminal at the Jacksonville Port has enhanced the area's position as one of the premier shipping hubs on the East Coast. As its initial project, Hillwood completed a 400,000-square-foot build-to-suit for Laney & Duke, one of the premier logistics companies in Florida.
Hillwood also is developing one of the most picturesque residential communities in the country. The historic 1,374-acre Bar BC Ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyoming is located in the valley known as Spring Gulch. The ranch is being developed with sensitivity to the habitat and historic agricultural use. Approximately 800 acres of the property have been divided into 17 homesites of 35- to 50-acres with vistas that include open pastures, the Snake and Gros Ventre rivers and the Teton Mountain Range. The remaining 507 acres have been placed in a conservation easement.
Other major Hillwood projects across the country include AllianceCalifornia in San Bernardino; DeSoto Trade Center in Southaven, Mississippi; and Lakeside Trade Center in Flower Mound, Texas.
The 2,000-acre AllianceCalifornia development is located in the next path of growth for the Los Angeles industrial market. The project is anchored by San Bernardino International Airport and close to one of the country’s largest intermodal yards. Hillwood currently is in the process of its most aggressive building program in the Inland Empire with 12 buildings totaling 5.7 million square feet scheduled to be completed by the end of 2008. Hillwood began developing in the Inland Empire in 2000, when it was named master developer of the former Norton Air Force Base. Since that time, close to 3,000 new jobs have been created at what is now called AllianceCalifornia, which has attracted facilities for global industry leading companies, including Kohl’s, Mattel, Stater Bros., Pactiv, Medline and Pep Boys
At DeSoto Trade Center Hillwood has developed six buildings totaling more than 4.1 million global industry leaders Conair, Kuehne + Nagel, Emerson and Helen of Troy. The 680-acre development has capacity for 11 million square feet in 16 buildings.
The 137-acre Lakeside Trade Center eventually will house five buildings totaling more than 2.2 million square feet. Hillwood recently began construction on two speculative buildings, the 333,372 square-foot Lakeside Trade Center 4 building and the 456,950 square-foot Lakeside Trade Center 5. Both are expected to be completed by the end of 2007. Customers in the development include Best Buy, Maytag, Stacy Furniture and Exel Logistics. Three buildings totaling more than 1.4 million square feet already have been completed.
Hillwood’s residential development team has been delivering high-quality, innovative communities in the Dallas-Fort Worth market for more than a decade. These developments offer the best amenities, such as swimming pools, parks, trails and ample landscaping. Several of the more recent communities also feature the latest in wiring technology and bundled services that allow fast and convenient computer and video connections. Since 1989 Hillwood has developed 18,000 single-family lots in more than 30 cities. Hillwood currently is developing 12 residential communities in the Texas cities of Waxahachie, Fort Worth, Allen, Trophy Club, Mesquite, Melissa, Dallas, Glenn Heights, Red Oak and Saginaw, as well as in Kaufman County.
Hillwood also is one of the country's top investors in golf courses with current partnerships with four of the country’s leading developers and operators. Hillwood and Discovery Land Company are partners in Spanish Oaks near Austin. The two companies also worked together at Circle T Ranch to develop Vaquero, which has been ranked as the top golf course in Texas by the Dallas Morning News. Hillwood's Lost Canyons Golf Club in Simi Valley, California is managed by Landmark National. Hillwood also is a joint venture partner with Heritage Golf Group in Meadowbrook Farms in Houston and The Golf Club at Castle Hills in Lewisville, Texas. Hillwood and ClubCorp are partners in Stonebriar Country Club in Frisco, Texas.
Partnerships have been a key to the development of Victory, the dynamic 75-acre live, work and play district near downtown Dallas. Hillwood, the city of Dallas, the Dallas Mavericks, the Dallas Stars and Hicks Muse Tate and Furst came together to build American Airlines Center, one of the world’s most prolific sports and entertainment facilities and the centerpiece of Victory.
Another partnership is guiding the cornerstone of Victory's next phase. Hillwood and Starwood Hotels worked together to develop the W Dallas Victory Hotel and Residences, which opened in June. Victory Plaza, located at the south entrance of the arena, features the energy and excitement of Times Square with massive video display boards and a storefront television studio for WFAA-TV, the local ABC affiliate.
By the end of the third phase, which should be completed in 2009, Victory will house 10 additional buildings with approximately 700 residential units, 850,000 square feet of office space and 310,000 square feet of retail space.
Hillwood’s most widely known project received its name from the public-private partnership formed to create one of the world’s most unique developments. AllianceTexas, which opened in 1989, was the result of cooperation between the city of Fort Worth, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Texas Department of Transportation and Hillwood.
Together these entities developed the world’s first industrial airport and the surrounding infrastructure that have helped AllianceTexas attract facilities for many of the world’s top companies. AllianceTexas already has had an economic impact of $28.5 billion. More than 140 companies, including 66 from either the Fortune 500, Global 500 or Forbes top private firms list, have built more than 26 million square feet of space and created 27,000 fulltime jobs.
Recently Hillwood began construction on its first multifamily project, Monterra Village, a luxury apartment home community at the southern entrance to AllianceTexas. The 288-unit first-phase of Hillwood's initial fore into multifamily development will begin opening in February 2008.
Monterra Village is close to Alliance Town Center, which is one of the fastest growing retail projects in the area. The recently completed J.C. Penney department store, Cheddar's restaurant and Wells Fargo bank will soon be joined by Belk, Hobby Lobby, Best Buy and Sam Moon stores, as well as banks and other restaurants.
Hillwood also is undertaking its most aggressive speculative building year at AllianceTexas with more than 2 million square feet of industrial and office space to be developed in 2007.
The 17,000-acre AllianceTexas development consists of the Alliance Global Logistics Hub, the picturesque corporate campuses and golf courses of Circle T Ranch and the high-tech residential community of Heritage. Combined these three distinct projects allow Hillwood to offer a wide variety of real estate options.
