IRVING: $4 BILLION IN PROJECTS

We snapped Greater Irving Las Colinas Chamber of Commerce (which serves as the economic development branch for the city) PR manager Jeff Mues and business recruitment director John Bonnot. The coming DART Orange Line is driving development of 7.2M SF of office space, retail, entertainment, and civic space, John says, spread across 28 projects: “We have a lot of cool stuff going on, including the SH 183 interchange connecting four highways at the old Texas Stadium site.”

We snapped the iconic mustangs of Las Colinas in the plaza of The Towers at Williams Square (despite their statuary nature, we still feared standing behind them). Las Colinas and Irving have multiple projects in the works including $479M in new multifamily residential developments completed or in development, John tells us. They include Monterra, The Lofts, Lincoln Townhomes, Bella Casita, The Delante, Alta Lakeshore Lofts, and the Mandalay on the Lake. Several single-family home projects are underway, too. Jeff tells us that behind Dallas and Fort Worth, Irving is the third largest employer in the Metroplex.

Driving down John Carpenter Freeway, we couldn’t miss what looks like the set of Transformers 3 but is actually the $133M Irving Convention Center, with a December targeted completion date. It will be a 275k SF multi-purpose facility with a 50k SF column-free exhibit hall, 20k SF of meeting space, and a 20k SF ballroom. The facility's flexible design will accommodate corporate exhibitions, employee training, shareholder meetings, trade shows, and others, John says. Designed by RMJM Hillier Architecture, the structural engineer is Datum Engineering and the GC is Austin Commercial.