Old Parkland has long been whispered about in Dallas finance circles as the place where the big checks get written.
The home of that mystique is growing: developer Harlan Crow has added three new office buildings to the 16-building compound, which now features 842,000 square feet of office space, reinforcing Old Parkland’s status as the most elite address in North Texas wealth.
Bloomberg chronicled the phenomenon, describing a setting at 3819 Maple Avenue near Reverchon Park that leans more Ivy League campus than office park, complete with manicured oaks, marble-clad and wood-paneled interiors as well as enough artifacts to fill a small museum.
Crow, heir to the influential Trammell Crow real estate dynasty, has decorated the property with dinosaur eggs, presidential portraits and even a replica surgical amphitheater. Former President George W. Bush keeps an office on-site. Prospective tenants don’t apply — they’re invited, and often personally recruited.
The expansion comes as Dallas chases higher-end office demand. Goldman Sachs is building a $500 million campus, Bank of America is adding a new tower and the region’s finance jobs now outnumber those in Chicago and Los Angeles.
But trophy space is still hard to come by. Family offices and private equity shops want exclusivity without the sprawl, and Old Parkland — where Crow Holdings is headquartered in a restored 1913 hospital campus — charges some of the highest rents in the city. Even so, the new East Campus is reportedly 80 percent leased, and the NYSE just grabbed 28,000 square feet for its Texas operation.
According to Bloomberg, Old Parkland’s draw goes beyond polish. The property hosts roughly 450 lectures and debates a year in its underground chamber, attracting everyone from Joe Biden to Rahm Emanuel to Karl Rove. For Austin-based founder Matt Weiss, a single lunch inside led to “a couple million” in commitments for his AI startup and a stack of new contacts. Other tenants say the address alone signals a level of access, noting amenities that verge on the theatrical, such as a parking garage that pipes in classical music.
Crow, now more focused on politics than development, still shapes the campus culture. The selective roll-out of new buildings and the slow-burn leasing strategy aim to preserve the project’s country-club aura, a rarity in the wider Dallas office market where vacancies hover around 25 percent.
— Eric Weilbacher
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