Dallas Among Finalists for All-America City Award
DFW: Dallas is a finalist for the All-America City Award. Given by the National Civic League, the award recognizes communities for their efforts to improve the lives of its residents, especially its youth. This also includes providing leadership opportunities for youth; promoting youth participation in voting and policymaking; enhancing civics education; improving police-youth relations and engagement in public safety; increasing job readiness and job opportunities for youth, and reducing poverty, income inequality and youth homelessness, among other themes. Dallas is among the list of 20 finalists who will compete for the title during an event competition in Denver during the weekend of June 9-11. For its presentation at the competition, each city will assemble teams comprised of residents, government leaders, businesses, non-profit organizations and youth to highlight the city’s efforts to a panel of civic leaders. Ten of the 20 will then be recognized as an All-American City. California leads the list of most finalists with four, followed by Texas, with three cities, including Dallas, Saginaw and San Antonio.
DFW: A sprawling Fort Worth warehouse distribution center that was completed last year and is fully leased has changed hands for $67.5 million to a Georgia investor that has other similar properties in North Texas. MDH Partners, based in Atlanta, bought the 40-acre Fort Worth Logistics Hub located in South Fort Worth from VanTrust Real Estate, a developer. MDH Partners has more than 80 million square feet of commercial space across 20 states, including 3 million square feet in Texas. The 670,000-square-foot distribution in Fort Worth is on Burleson Cardinal Road and Interstate 35W. A subsidiary of Samsung, the electronics conglomerate, is leasing the entire warehouse. DFW has about 75 million square feet of warehouse space in the construction pipeline, tops across the country. Most of that area construction was centered in southern Dallas County and the Alliance area in far north Fort Worth. Last year, North Texas led the country in commercial real estate transactions with more than $40 billion in sales.
DFW: Like a good neighbor, State Farm Insurance is trying to sublease unused space in its tower campus in the CityLine development in Richardson. The insurance company has more than 2 million square feet of space across four high-rise buildings in the complex. It is now trying to sublease more than 400,000 square feet of that space. The insurance carrier once had more 8,000 office workers in the complex, but the pandemic changed all that. It now has fewer workers in the Richardson buildings and the company is looking to shrink its office leases across the country. Transwestern, a commercial property company, reports that the insurance carrier, based in Illinois, has the most square feet of sublease space on the market in North Texas. Transwestern also estimates that more than 11 million square feet of office space is available for sublease in DFW. Another 6 million square feet of office space is under construction in North Texas.
DFW: Dallas County’s population is making a turnaround from the pandemic days that saw a wave of residents heading out of the county. Dallas County lost around 25,000 residents in 2021. In comparison, neighboring suburban counties recorded some of the biggest population increases. Now, data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that Dallas County has regained about 13,000 residents and is now listed as the eighth largest in the country with more than 2.6 million people. Collin County and Denton County were among the 10 fastest growing counties last year. Collin added 44,246 residents and Denton County added 33,424. Four other Texas counties – Harris, Fort Bend, Bexar and Montgomery—were also on the list and the six combined added 209,182 residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
IDAHO: Casino king Steve Wynn is betting against the house, or is he? Wynn has listed his four-acre Ketchum, Idaho property for $27 million. He bought the property in 2009 and five years later rebuilt it to the structure that it is today. The main house has 11 bedrooms, including six en suite bedrooms, and 14 bathrooms across more than 15,000 square feet of space. Exposed beams, hardwood floors, a chef’s kitchen with top-of-the line appliances, a gym, massage room, and media room are among the features in the mountain home retreat, which also has a pool and spa. The Idaho listing is the latest in a series of real estate sales as he’s trying to divest himself from his $300 million personal real estate stake across the country. He’s put up an estate in Palm Beach, Florida, for $78.5 million, and a Manhattan penthouse for $90 million. Last year, he sold his Las Vegas home for $17.5 million and a Palm Beach waterfront property for $32 million.