Perot Says Fort Worth Industrial Demand Driven by AI, Data Centers and Defense

Ross Perot Jr., chairman of Hillwood, told a Fort Worth Chamber audience that industrial demand at AllianceTexas is stronger than anything his team has seen in four decades of work at the 27,000-acre north Fort Worth and southern Denton County development. He said the company is running short of million-square-foot buildings as suppliers serving artificial intelligence and data center projects seek space.

Perot said AllianceTexas completed roughly 6 million to 7 million square feet of deals over the past year and supported about 10,000 new manufacturing jobs tied to the data center supply chain. He described a second wave of work, including factories, warehouses and logistics operations that support the equipment used in data centers, with the Interstate 35 corridor capturing much of that spillover.

Perot also said data centers with on-site natural gas generation and closed-loop cooling can benefit local tax bases. He pointed to Meta, which opened a data center at AllianceTexas in 2017 and is now the largest commercial and industrial taxpayer in Fort Worth. He also discussed immigration, tariffs and national security in the context of U.S. Chamber of Commerce priorities.

For developers and lenders, the takeaway is that newer industrial product near the I-35 corridor is in high demand, while older buildings may struggle to attract next-generation manufacturers.