Two words can sum up what’s been happening in Richardson
in 2013: State Farm. The December
announcement of State Farm’s plans for a 1.5 million square foot,
7,000-employee campus on Richardson’s
north side has been confirmed by the presence of land clearing equipment and an
ever increasing tempo of work on their site. The sheer magnitude of the project
was such that it came as no great surprise when the Dallas Business Journal selected it as the overall winner at its
annual “Best Real Estate Deals” awards gala on April 25.

Even though the initial occupancies in the three-building State
Farm campus will not occur until late 2014, the anticipation of that has been
shaping attitudes and activity in the Richardson
market. It’s no longer a secret that the intersection of Highway 75 and the
Bush Turnpike is a nexus for one of the richest veins of  financial and IT talent in not only DFW, but
the in the nation. Genpact, a
globally-prominent business process management company is planning to add 330 new
employees to its 200 on the Bush Turnpike, 
American Contractors Insurance
Group is moving here from the Park Central area, Cleveland-based Safeguard Properties is opening an
office here to serve the mortgage industry, and financial service outsourcing
company IQor is adding a new
regional office, hiring 60 new workers a week towards its goal of 700. In the
most recent development, Texas Capital
Bank made a 50,000 SF addition to its 120,000 SF of back office space at
2350 Lakeside. A number of other relocations and expansions
in the financial services sector are investigating both existing space and
build-to-suit opportunities in Richardson.

Technology companies are on the
move as well: Following Inogen last year, Richardson added another California
refugee in the form of 123eWireless,
a wireless components maker and distributor that found the Texas business
climate more to its liking and the Telecom Corridor® a home to a number of its
customers. Prodea, a home
entertainment platform technology company, shifted its operations to Richardson
this spring. Some may remember Anousheh Ansari, one of Prodea’s founders, from
her days at the helm of one of Richardson’s
great business success stories, Telecom Technologies, Inc. If one wanted to
look for a place to put together a portfolio of some of these great Telecom
Corridor companies, they could find it here with Trade Station Technologies, a fast-growing software company that
enables stock market trading from a PC or Mac and 24/7 market updates from
mobile devices.

With the financial service and
technology sectors in strong growth modes, 2013 has started off as another very
positive year for Richardson’s continued
economic growth and expansion.