DALLAS, TX - Trammell Crow, a pioneering Dallas developer who built one of the largest real estate companies in the U.S. and whose concepts revolutionized the commercial real estate industry, died Wednesday at a family farm near Tyler. He was 94.
Early in his career, Mr. Crow partnered with Dallas business and civic leader John Stemmons on projects in the Trinity River Industrial District, near downtown. Mr. Crow built warehouses on land Stemmons owned. There, he introduced speculative projects, constructing buildings before lining up tenants. He later took that approach to his office developments.
Mr. Crow, a one-time accountant and a Navy ensign in World War II, is probably best known for developing Dallas Market Center, a 30-year project that concluded with the 1985 opening of the Dallas Infomart. Mr. Crow's first development there was the Dallas Decorative Center, which opened in 1955. He built his first downtown building two years later.
The Trammell Crow Co. was sold in 2006 to CB Richard Ellis, the nation's largest real estate services company, for $1.8 billion. The Crow family is still involved in real estate through Crow Holdings Co., a $2.1 billion real estate equity firm, and Trammell Crow Residential, a developer of multifamily communities. Mr. Crow also founded the Wyndham Hotel Co.
"The world will remember Mr. Crow as a legendary real estate developer and businessman because of his unparalleled vision and passion for success," Jim Carreker, a former chief executive of the Trammell Crow Co., said in a statement. "To those who were fortunate to know him personally, we will remember his humor and upbeat personality along with his uncompromising honesty, integrity and character."
Wade Nowlin, whose family operated Nowlin Savings in Fort Worth, was a friend of Mr. Crow's. "He was the finest of gentlemen," Nowlin said. "He started out small and became worldwide in his scope, but he never lost that generous touch."
Although most of Trammell Crow Co.'s work was in Dallas, it had projects in Tarrant County. In the 1970s, the firm built warehouses in the Mark IV industrial development in north Fort Worth. In the 1980s, it built in Fossil Creek in north Fort Worth and in the Carter Industrial Park in south Fort Worth.
Bob Scully, managing director of CB Richard Ellis' Fort Worth office and a former Trammell Crow executive, described Mr. Crow as "an icon of the business we're all going to miss greatly. He cared so much about people, and people gravitated to him."
Trammell Crow Co. opened a Fort Worth office in 1998 in the former Bank One Tower at Fifth and Throckmorton streets, a building it tried to buy a couple of years later. Jim Eagle, an industry veteran, was the first to head the office. He said he met Mr. Crow at a company event more than a decade ago.
"It was like having the Messiah shake your hand," Eagle said. "When you look at all he accomplished, he's responsible not only for the careers of some supersuccessful real estate people, he transformed the central business districts in large cities all over the country. He's the man everybody wanted to be like."
In 2000, Trammell Crow Co. bought the 11-story Neil P. Anderson Building, at 411 W. Seventh St., and its brokers represented Pier 1 Imports in its purchase of the land on the western edge of downtown where it built a 20-story corporate headquarters. Chesapeake Energy bought the building last year.
Trammell Crow Co. had several developments in the Great Southwest Industrial District in Grand Prairie, along Texas 360 in Arlington and near Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. The company developed the Siemens Dematic headquarters near Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. Trammell Crow Residential developed The Reserve, just west of downtown Fort Worth on Henderson Street.
Mr. Crow was born June 10, 1914, in Dallas to Jefferson and Mary Crow. He graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in 1932 and attended the American Institute of Banking and Dallas College, the evening division of Southern Methodist University. He was an auditor with Ernst & Ernst and specialized in tax work with Smith, Morrison and Salois in Dallas before going into real estate.
He and his wife, Margaret, collected Asian art in their travels. In 1998, the couple created an Asian art museum in the Dallas Arts District. In 1985, the Crows gave a gift to SMU to build the Trammell Crow Building for the Cox business school, and in 1990 they founded the National Tree Trust, a nonprofit group that promotes local tree planting.
Crow was known to conduct business on a handshake. He relied on hundreds of young leasing agents, and those who proved themselves talented and hardworking became partners. As he brought in new people, he gave them an equity stake in the business. Crow's agents did more than $15 billion in development and eventually gave him an interest in 8,000 properties.
By the 1960s, Trammell Crow Co. expanded beyond Texas, breaking ground on the Embarcadero Center office project in San Francisco in 1968. Trammell Crow also developed properties in Brussels, Hong Kong, Miami, Atlanta, Kansas City, Minneapolis and Washington, D.C.
When the real estate industry was hit hard by recession in the mid-1970s, Mr. Crow's company was forced to renegotiate billions of dollars of debt and restructure, with the company taking back many assets as partners left. Mr. Crow stepped down as chief executive in 1977. Mr. Crow is survived by his wife of 66 years, six children, 16 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Source: Star-Telegram.com