Alliance Airport was blueprints and a proposal in 1988.
Fort Worth had 400,000 residents.
And Texas Christian University was a prestigious regional institution about to finish ahead of only Rice in the Southwest Conference that season.
The dizzying upward trajectory of the university, the city and a small real estate development project from then to 2025 is a classic Fort Worth story of the interconnectedness of institutions, the power of individual vision and the Cowtown way. And there is nobody better able to tell this story than Ross Perot Jr. and Mike Berry, the chairman and president, respectively, of Hillwood, developer of Alliance.
These two titans of real estate development were on TCU’s campus recently for a fireside chat as part of the university’s Center for Real Estate’s fall board meeting, put on by Director James Hill. In a wide-ranging, disarmingly honest conversation, Perot and Berry talked about how that little airport project turned into AllianceTexas — one of the fastest growing and most dynamic regions in the country — and why they believe Fort Worth is positioned to maintain that momentum, with TCU playing an important role.
“You cannot be a great city if you don’t have great developers,” Perot said. “We, in this room, we build cities, and so it’s your vision and your passion that can help make your city better.”
That comment was directed as much to the TCU real estate students in the room as to the businessmen. Perot gave Horned Frog students a lot of credit for the region’s growth, noting students often serve as location scouts for their parents, who fall in love with the school and the city. Many end up moving here and bringing their businesses.
“And we are just getting started,” said Berry, who is also a member of TCU’s Board of Trustees. “We have an unofficial motto at Hillwood. NML. Need more land.”
Perot and Berry being bullish on TCU, Fort Worth, Alliance and North Texas is more than a friendly endorsement. Hillwood has an incredible track record of being ahead of what’s next — in development, in industry and, yes, in pop culture.
A few years back, the city of Fort Worth gathered business leaders to reimagine the way the city does economic development. Berry, who was recently given the Dan Petty Regional Visionary Award for his leadership in advancing economic vitality in the region, invited Perot to join him. On his ride over, Perot called to see if Berry wanted him to say anything at the meeting.
Now Perot and Berry have worked together for 37 years at Hillwood, turning swaths of grasslands into one of the fastest-growing regions in the country as part of 27,000-acre AllianceTexas development in north Fort Worth. Their friendship goes back further than that, to their days at Vanderbilt.
So Berry had a pretty good idea of Perot’s talking points – aerospace, semiconductors, advanced manufacturing. Or so he thought.
“He stands up at the lunch, in front of all of the business leaders in Fort Worth, and says: ‘This Taylor Sheridan thing is real. The whole Yellowstone craze is. You should grab that and make a whole economic development strategy around it,’” Berry recounted. “I was kind of rolling my eyes. … Well, sure enough, as he is in most areas, where he’s five or 10 years ahead of everybody, he was right, and it has continued to grow.”
Perot laughed as Berry recounted the story, and then he explained his rationale.
“You have a Fort Worth citizen, Taylor Sheridan, and his shows really do resonate with the Texas crowd and the U.S. crowd, and it’s just a fluke we have him,” Perot said about the highly acclaimed filmmaker, writer and producer of shows like Yellowstone, Landman, Lioness and more. Sheridan has this community in his DNA, attending high school in Fort Worth and being presented with an honorary doctorate from TCU in May.
“That’s why I said: ‘This guy generates so much activity. How do we embrace him as a city? How do we have filming here? And where will it go?”
One of the biggest, best and most under-told stories around TCU and Fort Worth right now is Hillwood partnering with Sheridan’s SGS Studios and Paramount Television on a 450,000-square-foot TV and film facility in Alliance. The space is expected to support four large-scale productions simultaneously and marks the largest running studio facility in the Lone Star State.
Perot, Berry and Hillwood certainly have put skin in the game, investing $65 million in the SGS facility as well as in educational partnerships to boost local employment and training for film professionals. This type of public-private collaboration is a hallmark of the city and its leaders.
“SGS Studios isn’t just about soundstages or tax incentives — it’s about reclaiming the independence and grit that built this industry in the first place,” Sheridan said in a statement to Newsweek. “Texas offers something rare: the space to dream big, the freedom to build fast and a community that still believes storytelling matters.”
Perot has already seen the shift in filming, as has Fort Worth and TCU, with Landman and Lioness having scenes shot on campus. This trend is fueled by the obvious — a new Texas law allocating $1.5 billion over 10 years to attract filmmakers and TV shows to the state — and the less so, what Perot referred to as “culture.”
The fact that gentlemen open doors in Texas and handshake deals still happen may not seem like it would play a big role in attracting business. It does, Perot said, and also comes into play on why filmmakers have chosen Texas. Perot recalled talking to Mel Gibson about why he was shooting in New Mexico. Tax incentives were the answer and, next thing you know, filmmakers were in Austin talking to politicians about solutions.
Senate Bill 22 passed the Texas Legislature in June, allocating $300 million for the Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program every two years through 2035.
“You are lucky to live in Texas,” Perot told the crowd, “and lucky to be here at TCU.”
TCU’s Hill said the feeling is mutual.
“We are truly blessed to have titans of industry like Mike Berry and Ross Perot Jr. as champions of Fort Worth, our industry and the TCU Center for Real Estate,” he said. “Their vision and partnership in developing the next generation of real estate leaders exemplify the collaboration that makes our program such a special and unique place to learn and lead.”