It’s not just giant soundstages that Fort Worth’s burgeoning film industry needs — it’s office space.
“Every single one of our shows needs about 20,000 to 30,000 square feet of office space,” said Pintoo Shah, who works with SGS Holdings on real estate transactions.
SGS Holdings is the partnership between “Landman” producer Taylor Sheridan, David Glasser and Dan Schryer that launched the massive 450,000-square-foot, two-building film studio campus at AllianceTexas in partnership with Hillwood and Paramount.
Shah’s comments came during a 2026 Real Estate Forecast event held Jan. 22 as experts discussed ways in which Fort Worth can bolster its ties to film and TV productions in North Texas. Shah said that, while the industry will pay a premium for that space, they are not a typical office tenant looking for a five- or 10-year lease.
“There’s a lot of opportunities if you have the ability to provide short-term real estate,” he said.
They also want the least amount of hassle in making the lease, he said.
“Just tell me what my monthly rent number is,” he said about film industry tenants. “If it’s like $100,000 a month? ‘Here you go. Leave me alone. We’ve gotta produce content.’”
Shah, who previously handled real estate for NBCUniversal, told the crowd at Texas Christian University that the film industry needs the local real estate community to be flexible and move quickly. That will pay off for the real estate industry as well, he said.
“Quite frankly, the rates are really, really good,” Shah said. “There’s a huge opportunity to actually make some money, but you have to understand how the industry works.”
For owners of Class B or Class C office properties, the film business may be a lifeline, Shah said.
“We need space for a few months, and we’ll pay a premium,” he said. “So that can really work in your favor. Folks need to think about how you can serve these short-term productions.”
But these giant soundstages announced in August are only one part of the real estate needs of the growing local industry, Shah said.
“I had a phone call from my production that needed 50,000 square feet of warehouse space by Friday,” he said. “I called my friend, and we got the paper and we’re done. It’s like a six-month lease.”
The Fort Worth Film Commission’s work with Sheridan, a 1987 graduate of R.L. Paschal High School, began in 2021 when he sought to film a Fort Worth equestrian scene for the TV series “Yellowstone.”
He then returned to film the “1883” spinoff in the city, followed by a season of “Lawmen: Bass Reeves,” two seasons of “Lioness,” two seasons of “Landman,” and two new shows, “The Madison” and “The Dutton Ranch.”
Act II: Office space taking the trophy in 2026
As the film industry looks to fill space, the traditional users — businesses — have been returning to the office, said Todd Burnette, executive director for JLL in Fort Worth.
Burnette told the crowd that the office real estate sector suffered in the wake of the pandemic but is showing signs of renewed strength as more companies require mandatory in-office attendance.
“Nationally, leasing grew quarter-over-quarter in 2025,” Burnette said. “That’s the first time since 2019.”
Office leasing in Fort Worth was strong this year too, even though the numbers showed a total negative absorption — when the total square footage vacated exceeds the space leased — by 266,000 square feet.
But if you take out one lease that was not renewed at 450,000 square feet, executive vice president at JLL Cannon Camp said Fort Worth would have had positive absorption for the first time since 2019.
Class A office space ended the year with 250,048 square feet of net absorption, according to JLL. Meanwhile, Fort Worth’s downtown office vacancy remained steady at 13%, making it one of the top five strongest downtown markets in the U.S., Burnette said.
While downtown remains strong, plenty of high-end, so-called trophy-class office space is under construction just west of the central business district that is drawing some downtown tenants away.
Crescent Real Estate, for instance, has its second trophy-class office building under construction along West 7th Street with JPMorganChase, moving much of its downtown operations to the 170,000-square-foot site set to open in mid-2027.
Just down the street from that building, Goldenrod Cos. broke ground last year on the 100,000-square-foot Van Zandt mixed-use building that is expected to offer plenty of spec office space. The Van Zandt should open next year as well. So far, no tenets have been announced for the building.
Further west, at the Clearfork development, Cassco has an 80,000-square-foot trophy-class building that will open later this year. Wells Fargo Bank will relocate from downtown’s City Center Tower to Clearfork.
Other trophy-class buildings in the planning stages have yet to break ground.
The first phase of Keystone Group and Larkspur Capital’s 37-acre mixed-use Westside Village project will include about 100,000 square feet of office space with a potential “mass timber” mixed-use project that will be about 180,000 square feet, much of that dedicated to office space.
Notable transactions last year included a 455,000-square-foot renewal by Lockheed Martin of office space in north Fort Worth that was the largest lease of the decade in the city’s office market. Lockheed Martin also renewed a 175,000-square-foot lease in Arlington.
“Defense spending continues to be up,” Burnette said.
Act III: Move toward manufacturing
The Dallas-Fort Worth area is now the No. 2 industrial market in the country and the No. 1 in the number of projects under development, said Sam Rhea, vice president of industrial leasing at Hillwood.
That is in spite of the slowing effect of last year’s tariffs, he said.
Now, Hillwood and others are seeing a shift in the industrial market toward more manufacturing inquiries, Rhea said.
“We went from 75% to 85% inquiries being logistics, distribution and e-commerce to that being manufacturing, production and assembly by the midway point of the year,” he said.
Hillwood has 2.3 million square feet under construction with plans to break ground on another 2 million by the end of February, Rhea said.
“It would be the most buildings Hillwood’s ever had under construction at one time in AllianceTexas,” Rhea said.