Trammell Crow
Encyclopedia
F. Trammell Crow was an American
real estate developer. Crow is credited for creating several famous real estate projects, including Dallas Market Center
, Peachtree Center
(Atlanta, Georgia
), and San Francisco
's Embarcadero Center
.
, Texas
. As a child and later as an adolescent, he earned money through a series of odd jobs, including plucking
chickens, cleaning bricks, and unloading boxcar
s beginning at age 10 until his father, a bookkeeper, forbade it. He was the fifth of eight children who grew up in a rented one-bedroom house off Fitzhugh Street in East Dallas. His father, Jefferson Crow, worked as a bookkeeper for Collett Munger – one of Dallas' early real estate developers who built the Munger Place subdivision. Unable to attend college because of the Great Depression, Mr. Crow worked after high school at odd jobs. In 1933, Crow landed a job as a runner for Mercantile National Bank in Dallas, earning about $13 a week.
After completing Woodrow Wilson High School
in 1932, he worked for a Dallas bank and attended night school in accounting at Southern Methodist University
. Upon graduation in 1938, he was the youngest CPA
in Texas, at age 24. He then worked for three years as a CPA
before joining the Navy in 1940. He utilized his background in accounting and was offered a commission auditing the books of defense contractors. After World War II, he remained with the Navy for another year to handle final settlements with the Navy's contractors and then moved back to Dallas. He had no difficulty perceiving the city's growth, and became an agent for North American Van Lines
, a moving company. Shortly thereafter, he worked as a wholesale grain merchandiser where he worked to triple the sizes of the warehouses and erect new loading facilities. Once the grain business faded, he switched at the age of 33 to the field of warehouse real estate development
believing there was considerable room for growth.
Crow built his first warehouse in 1948 and leased it to Ray-O-Vac Battery Co. He put up the building for Ray-O-Vac which proved to be considerably larger than the company needed, leaving Crow to seek out additional tenants. He convinced Decca Records
to sign on for the leftover space, and began a career as a "speculative builder." This field was a new concept in property development, in which builders typically designed construction to meet the expressed needs of one specific company, then leased the entire space to that company after the building was in place.
He continued from his start with a single-story warehouse on the banks of the Trinity River in the late 1940s. In parternships with John M. Stemmons
he became one of the largest developers in the Trinity River
Industrial Park. By the mid-1950s, Crow was Dallas' largest warehouse builder.
His company's skyscrapers – including Dallas' 50-story Trammell Crow Center and the 53-story Chase Tower – reshaped skylines in the 1980s in cities stretching from Charlotte, N.C., to Atlanta, San Francisco and San Diego.
into a nationwide organization, another innovation in a field that was, at the time, dominated strictly by local builders.
Forbes
in 1971 and The Wall Street Journal
in 1986 called Crow the largest landlord in the United States. The Journal said the company he founded was then the nation’s biggest developer.
Crow once had interests in nearly 300000000 square feet (27,870,912 m²) of developed real estate, comprising 8,000 properties in more than 100 cities. Crow's holdings were said to be much larger than those of the better-known William Zeckendorf
and Donald Trump
and include hotel
s, hospital
s, residential developments, and — just as in the early days of the company — warehouses. The Austin Business Journal said in its profile of TCC, "When compared to Trammell Crow, other real estate companies are for the birds." Yahoo! Finance, in an oddly similar metaphor, said in its company profile: "It takes a tough bird to succeed in the real estate business, and Trammell Crow Company is one of the cocks of the walk." Calling the organization "one of the top diversified real estate management companies in the US," the profile estimates that the company manages nearly 550000000 square feet (51,096,672 m²) of warehouse, service center, and retail space in the United States and Canada. As of June, 2007, the company was set to grow even further with the scheduled $60 million purchase of the HealthSouth
headquarters building in Birmingham
, Alabama
.
Trammell Crow Company
was privately held until it went public on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol TCC in 1997. In 2006, Trammell Crow Company was sold to CB Richard Ellis
group (NYSE:CBG) for approximately $2.2 billion.
with Alex Kerr
, and sometime later after Kerr was more established he became an art purchaser in Tokyo for the Trammell Crow Company at the behest of Crow Senior.
Crow was instrumental in bringing the Republican National Convention
to Dallas in 1984. He and his wife Margaret Crow were avid collectors of Asian art, for which they established a museum in Dallas, The Trammell & Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art
, his private museum, is open to the public free of charge. It is located on Flora Street in the Arts District
of downtown Dallas. At the time of his death, Trammell Crow was married to his wife of 66 years had six children: Lucy Billingsley, Robert Crow, Harlan Crow
, Howard Crow, Stuart Crow, and Trammell S. Crow. Trammell and his wife have sixteen grandchildren and three great grand children.
Late in life, Crow began suffering from Alzheimer's disease
. Crow died in his sleep at his ranch near Tyler, Texas
, on January 14, 2009.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
real estate developer. Crow is credited for creating several famous real estate projects, including Dallas Market Center
Dallas Market Center
Dallas Market Center, located along Stemmons Freeway in Dallas, Texas , sits on of land and spans more than . Dallas Market Center is the international home of the lighting industry, a leader in home décor and the national home of the floral and Christmas industries.- The campus :The...
, Peachtree Center
Peachtree Center
Peachtree Center is a multi-block neighborhood located in Downtown Atlanta, Georgia. Most of the buildings that make up the district were designed by Atlanta architect John C. Portman, Jr.. Many of the buildings are connected by a network of enclosed pedestrian sky bridges...
(Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...
), and San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
's Embarcadero Center
Embarcadero Center
Embarcadero Center is a commercial complex of five office towers and two hotels on a site located off the Embarcadero in the financial district of San Francisco, California. The Trammell Crow, David Rockefeller and John Portman development was begun with Tower One in 1971, with the last...
.
Biography
Crow was born in DallasDallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
. As a child and later as an adolescent, he earned money through a series of odd jobs, including plucking
Plucking (hair removal)
Plucking or tweezing can mean the process of removing human hair, animal hair or a bird's feathers by mechanically pulling the item from the owner's body.In humans, this is done for personal grooming purposes, usually with tweezers...
chickens, cleaning bricks, and unloading boxcar
Boxcar
A boxcar is a railroad car that is enclosed and generally used to carry general freight. The boxcar, while not the simplest freight car design, is probably the most versatile, since it can carry most loads...
s beginning at age 10 until his father, a bookkeeper, forbade it. He was the fifth of eight children who grew up in a rented one-bedroom house off Fitzhugh Street in East Dallas. His father, Jefferson Crow, worked as a bookkeeper for Collett Munger – one of Dallas' early real estate developers who built the Munger Place subdivision. Unable to attend college because of the Great Depression, Mr. Crow worked after high school at odd jobs. In 1933, Crow landed a job as a runner for Mercantile National Bank in Dallas, earning about $13 a week.
After completing Woodrow Wilson High School
Woodrow Wilson High School (Dallas)
Woodrow Wilson High School is a public secondary school located at 100 South Glasgow Drive in the Lakewood neighborhood of East Dallas, Texas in the ZIP code 75214. It was named in honor of former U.S. president Woodrow Wilson, who died just three years before the school building was completed...
in 1932, he worked for a Dallas bank and attended night school in accounting at Southern Methodist University
Southern Methodist University
Southern Methodist University is a private university in Dallas, Texas, United States. Founded in 1911 by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, SMU operates campuses in Dallas, Plano, and Taos, New Mexico. SMU is owned by the South Central Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church...
. Upon graduation in 1938, he was the youngest CPA
Certified Public Accountant
Certified Public Accountant is the statutory title of qualified accountants in the United States who have passed the Uniform Certified Public Accountant Examination and have met additional state education and experience requirements for certification as a CPA...
in Texas, at age 24. He then worked for three years as a CPA
Certified Public Accountant
Certified Public Accountant is the statutory title of qualified accountants in the United States who have passed the Uniform Certified Public Accountant Examination and have met additional state education and experience requirements for certification as a CPA...
before joining the Navy in 1940. He utilized his background in accounting and was offered a commission auditing the books of defense contractors. After World War II, he remained with the Navy for another year to handle final settlements with the Navy's contractors and then moved back to Dallas. He had no difficulty perceiving the city's growth, and became an agent for North American Van Lines
North American Van Lines
North American Van Lines, or NAVL, is a large, United States based trucking company originally formed in Cleveland, Ohio and later based in Fort Wayne, Indiana, which specializes in home and office relocations.-History:...
, a moving company. Shortly thereafter, he worked as a wholesale grain merchandiser where he worked to triple the sizes of the warehouses and erect new loading facilities. Once the grain business faded, he switched at the age of 33 to the field of warehouse real estate development
Real estate development
Real estate development, or Property Development, is a multifaceted business, encompassing activities that range from the renovation and re-lease of existing buildings to the purchase of raw land and the sale of improved land or parcels to others...
believing there was considerable room for growth.
Crow built his first warehouse in 1948 and leased it to Ray-O-Vac Battery Co. He put up the building for Ray-O-Vac which proved to be considerably larger than the company needed, leaving Crow to seek out additional tenants. He convinced Decca Records
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
to sign on for the leftover space, and began a career as a "speculative builder." This field was a new concept in property development, in which builders typically designed construction to meet the expressed needs of one specific company, then leased the entire space to that company after the building was in place.
He continued from his start with a single-story warehouse on the banks of the Trinity River in the late 1940s. In parternships with John M. Stemmons
John M. Stemmons
John Millard Stemmons was a real estate developer and civic leader in Dallas, Texas. He is best known for his efforts to develop the former flood plain of the Trinity River and his lucrative donation of land for the Stemmons Freeway that was named for his father, Leslie Stemmons.Stemmons attended...
he became one of the largest developers in the Trinity River
Trinity River (Texas)
The Trinity River is a long river that flows entirely within the U.S. state of Texas. It rises in extreme north Texas, a few miles south of the Red River. The headwaters are separated by the high bluffs on the south side of the Red River....
Industrial Park. By the mid-1950s, Crow was Dallas' largest warehouse builder.
His company's skyscrapers – including Dallas' 50-story Trammell Crow Center and the 53-story Chase Tower – reshaped skylines in the 1980s in cities stretching from Charlotte, N.C., to Atlanta, San Francisco and San Diego.
Trammell Crow Company
By 1970, Crow had developed Trammell Crow CompanyTrammell Crow Company
Trammell Crow Company is a Dallas-based real estate development, investment and operations company founded by the late Trammell Crow, and operated as an independent subsidiary of CB Richard Ellis. It was founded by Trammell Crow in 1948 and purchased in late 2006...
into a nationwide organization, another innovation in a field that was, at the time, dominated strictly by local builders.
Forbes
Forbes
Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...
in 1971 and The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
in 1986 called Crow the largest landlord in the United States. The Journal said the company he founded was then the nation’s biggest developer.
Crow once had interests in nearly 300000000 square feet (27,870,912 m²) of developed real estate, comprising 8,000 properties in more than 100 cities. Crow's holdings were said to be much larger than those of the better-known William Zeckendorf
William Zeckendorf
William Zeckendorf, Sr. was a prominent American real estate developer. Through his development company Webb and Knapp – for which he began working in 1938 and which he purchased in 1949 – he developed a significant portion of the New York City urban landscape.-Career:Zeckendorf's...
and Donald Trump
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump, Sr. is an American business magnate, television personality and author. He is the chairman and president of The Trump Organization and the founder of Trump Entertainment Resorts. Trump's extravagant lifestyle, outspoken manner and role on the NBC reality show The Apprentice have...
and include hotel
Hotel
A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms...
s, hospital
Hospital
A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....
s, residential developments, and — just as in the early days of the company — warehouses. The Austin Business Journal said in its profile of TCC, "When compared to Trammell Crow, other real estate companies are for the birds." Yahoo! Finance, in an oddly similar metaphor, said in its company profile: "It takes a tough bird to succeed in the real estate business, and Trammell Crow Company is one of the cocks of the walk." Calling the organization "one of the top diversified real estate management companies in the US," the profile estimates that the company manages nearly 550000000 square feet (51,096,672 m²) of warehouse, service center, and retail space in the United States and Canada. As of June, 2007, the company was set to grow even further with the scheduled $60 million purchase of the HealthSouth
HealthSouth
HealthSouth Corporation , based in Birmingham, Alabama, is the nation’s largest owner and operator of inpatient rehabilitative hospitals. Operating in 26 states across the country and in Puerto Rico, HealthSouth serves patients through its network of inpatient rehabilitation hospitals , outpatient...
headquarters building in Birmingham
Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County. According to the 2010 United States Census, Birmingham had a population of 212,237. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area, in estimate by the U.S...
, Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
.
Trammell Crow Company
Trammell Crow Company
Trammell Crow Company is a Dallas-based real estate development, investment and operations company founded by the late Trammell Crow, and operated as an independent subsidiary of CB Richard Ellis. It was founded by Trammell Crow in 1948 and purchased in late 2006...
was privately held until it went public on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol TCC in 1997. In 2006, Trammell Crow Company was sold to CB Richard Ellis
CB Richard Ellis
CBRE Group, Inc. , a Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company headquartered in Los Angeles, is the world’s largest commercial real estate services firm . The Company has approximately 31,000 employees , and serves real estate owners, investors and occupiers through more than 300 offices worldwide...
group (NYSE:CBG) for approximately $2.2 billion.
Art collection
Trammell Crow was an enthusiastic collector of East Asian art. His son Trammell S Crow went to YaleYALE
RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...
with Alex Kerr
Alex Kerr
Alex Kerr is an American writer and Japanologist.-Life and career:Originally from the Bethesda area in Montgomery County, Maryland, Kerr’s father, a naval officer, was posted in Yokohama from 1964 to 1966. Kerr returned to the states and studied Japanese Studies at Yale University...
, and sometime later after Kerr was more established he became an art purchaser in Tokyo for the Trammell Crow Company at the behest of Crow Senior.
Personal
He was inducted as a member of the Woodrow Wilson High School Hall of Fame when it was created in 1989 in connection with celebrating the school's 60th anniversary.Crow was instrumental in bringing the Republican National Convention
Republican National Convention
The Republican National Convention is the presidential nominating convention of the Republican Party of the United States. Convened by the Republican National Committee, the stated purpose of the convocation is to nominate an official candidate in an upcoming U.S...
to Dallas in 1984. He and his wife Margaret Crow were avid collectors of Asian art, for which they established a museum in Dallas, The Trammell & Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art
The Trammell & Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art
The Trammell & Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art, located downtown Dallas, Texas , is a member of the Dallas arts district and offers free daily admission. The museum is a gift to the people and visitors of Dallas from Mr. and Mrs. Crow...
, his private museum, is open to the public free of charge. It is located on Flora Street in the Arts District
Arts District, Dallas
The Arts District is a performing and visual arts district in downtown Dallas Texas .It is south of State Thomas, southeast of Uptown, north of the City Center District, west of Bryan Place and east of the West End Historic District. It is bounded by St...
of downtown Dallas. At the time of his death, Trammell Crow was married to his wife of 66 years had six children: Lucy Billingsley, Robert Crow, Harlan Crow
Harlan Crow
Harlan R. Crow is an American real estate magnate from Dallas, Texas. He is the third son of Trammell Crow and the head of Crow Holdings.Crow was born in Dallas the third son of Margaret and Trammel Crow and has four brothers and one sister. Unlike his siblings, he attended high school at the...
, Howard Crow, Stuart Crow, and Trammell S. Crow. Trammell and his wife have sixteen grandchildren and three great grand children.
Late in life, Crow began suffering from Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...
. Crow died in his sleep at his ranch near Tyler, Texas
Tyler, Texas
Tyler is a city in and the county seat of Smith County, Texas, in the United States. It takes its name from President John Tyler . The city had a population of 109,000 in 2010, according to the United States Census Bureau...
, on January 14, 2009.
Further reading
- Robert SobelRobert SobelRobert Sobel was an American professor of history at Hofstra University, and a well-known and prolific writer of business histories.- Biography :...
. Trammell Crow, Master Builder. - Willam Bragg Ewald, Jr., Trammell Crow: A Legacy of Real Estate Business Innovation.