It’s no secret the Dallas region is benefitting from California companies looking to move out of state. But Charles Schwab Corp.’s shift to North Texas is a big one, showcasing the ongoing changes in the region. The retail brokerage said Monday in a news release it’s acquiring rival TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. (Nasdaq: AMTD) in a deal valued at about $26 billion, a massive tie-up for the financial services industry. As part of that, it will shift its corporate headquarters from San Francisco to its new campus in Westlake. The agreement is subject to customary closing conditions, it said. A headquarters relocation from Schwab (NYSE: SCHW) even without the merger would bring heft to North Texas. Click to read more at www.wfaa.com.

A jump in nonresidential building starts put Dallas-Fort Worth construction totals in October ahead of last year’s levels. Commercial and nonresidential building construction in D-FW last month rose 34% year-over-year, according to a new report by Dodge Data & Analytics. While residential starts were down 7% in October from 2018 levels, total building activity was still up 9% from the same period last year. But the increase in October starts wasn’t enough to turn around North Texas building volumes for the entire year. Through the first 10 months of 2019, D-FW construction activity is 4% lower than year-ago totals, Dodge Data reports. All of the decline — 13% — has been in the residential sector. Nationwide construction starts were down 11% in October, the third such decline in a row, Dodge Data found. Click to read more at www.dallasnews.com.

Originally home to the Sinclair Oil Company in the 1930s, a monument to American industry and progress, The Sinclair has been restaged as a modern icon and the city’s first smart hotel. The Autograph Collection hotel, 512 Main St., will open the doors to its tech-friendly hotel this Fall, just steps from Sundance Square, the city’s entertainment, dining, shopping, and residential district. Beginning in 2015, design firm Forrest Perkins, in partnership with Merriman Anderson Architects, thoughtfully restored and redesigned the property to retain the building’s signature “ZigZag Moderne” structural styling. The interiors, guest rooms, and corridors were restored to represent the property’s original art deco style with deep blue and rich brown hues. The finished hotel eloquently couples the Art Deco style of the Gilded Age with contemporary, cutting-edge technology in a refined yet rugged style. Click to read more at www.dmagazine.com.

Construction is underway on a much-anticipated retail development along North Texas’ Chisholm Trail Parkway. Named for the iconic Chisholm Trail along which it’s built, The Shops at Chisholm Trail Ranch is part of Chisholm Trail Ranch, a 625-acre, master-planned development about 12 minutes south of downtown Fort Worth. The development offers 250,000 square feet of space for entertainment, restaurants and retail users, including Marshalls, Old Navy, Five Below and Ulta. Studio Movie Grill has signed on as the entertainment anchor. The design also features eight smaller shop buildings between the outparcels and the major retail behind it. “Those eight buildings are lined with breezeways between them for patios and will have hanging lights. They’re designed to create an area where people are comfortable hanging out,” says Anne Kuta, development director for StreetLevel Investments, adding, “We start delivering spaces to the tenants in December with a grand opening for the entire shopping center in April.”
The development is more than 80 percent leased as we head to print, but there are still a few spaces available for interested restaurants and retailers. Click to read more at www.rednews.com.

Mike Hoque’s office on the 56th floor of the Comerica Bank tower in downtown Dallas looks out onto a patchwork of parking lots, crumbling brick buildings, and empty streets and concrete sidewalks that have long served as a kind of symbolic border between the city’s thriving north and forgotten south. About a decade ago, Hoque began buying up the no man’s land, small parcel by small parcel. It seemed like an easy bet. The fortunes of land adjacent to the downtown of a major American city would inevitably reverse. The only question was when. Hoque’s gamble nearly paid off when executives from Amazon came to town looking for a location for a second headquarters. The corporation shortlisted his property but eventually passed on Dallas. In the meantime, though, Hoque had caught another break. After the passage of President Donald Trump’s tax bill, most of the media attention focused on its steep tax cuts. But a somewhat arcane provision slipped into the legislation caught Hoque’s interest. It provided for the creation of something called “Opportunity Zones.” Click here to read more at www.dmagazine.com.