Alliance generates billions for North Texas; employs 45K workers

​FORT WORTH – More than 4,000 jobs were added at AllianceTexas in far north Fort Worth in 2015, bringing the development’s employment numbers above 45,000, a new report shows.

Since it started with the opening of Alliance Airport in 1989, Hillwood Properties’ 18,000-acre mixed-used development has generated $59.69 billion in economic impact to North Texas, including $4.32 billion last year, according to an annual report presented to the City Council.

Last year’s impact was down slightly from 2014, when the economic impact was placed at about $4.75 billion.

But 2015 was a big year for Alliance in terms of new projects, including groundbreaking on the $1 billion Facebook data center and Walmart.com’s announcement for another e-commerce center at Alliance Center North II.

The report, updated annually by Insight Research Corp., measures the impact of total investment and total jobs at the development. Alliance has industrial, Class A office, aviation, retail, residential, medical and multifamily real estate projects. The majority of Alliance is located in Fort Worth.

Facebook bought 110 acres from Hillwood earlier in 2015. But by mid-December it added another 39 acres for a possible expansion beyond the planned 750,000 sf of data center space already on the drawing board.

A great deal of growth continues to take place at AllianceTexas. Over the last 25 years, we’ve gone from wheat fields to job fields.

In a key development to future growth, the City Council in August awarded a $61.9 million contract to complete the runway extension project at Alliance Airport.

The longer runway will allow bigger planes from huge global cargo carriers to take off and land at Alliance, boosting business in Fort Worth and the region. The expansion is scheduled to be completed in 2018.

In 2015, Alliance paid about $140.5 million in property taxes to eight public entities. Since 1989, it has paid $1.58 billion in taxes.

In all, about $8.4 billion has been invested at Alliance with $7.8 billion coming from the private sector.

Those figures represent monies invested in schools and other public facilities as well.