Las Colinas' Class A office towers and waterfront mixed-use developments hold some of the highest landscape-presentation standards in the DFW submarket, with canal and lakefront frontage that stays visible to tenants and visitors year-round. Greenly Landscapes delivers premium maintenance and enhancement programs designed for that level of property, from structured turf and seasonal color programs to ongoing irrigation management.
Las Colinas Local History
Before the office towers, Lake Carolyn, the Mandalay Canals, Williams Square, and the Mustangs, there was the Carpenter family's Hackberry Creek Ranch. Ben Carpenter eventually looked at that property and saw something much larger — especially once he recognized what a new international airport nearby was about to change.
Las Colinas was unveiled in 1973. DFW International Airport opened in January 1974. The timing and proximity mattered: the airport was creating a new international gateway between Dallas and Fort Worth, and Carpenter recognized that land positioned near it could become far more valuable and strategically important than it had ever been as ranchland.
Las Colinas's proximity to DFW International Airport helped position it as an attractive location for companies needing strategic access to Dallas, Fort Worth, and national and international markets, employees, and clients. The Irving-Las Colinas Chamber has used the phrase "Headquarters of Headquarters" to describe the area's corporate concentration.
Location created the opportunity. Vision created the place. Standards helped define it. Stewardship helps preserve it.
Carpenter wasn't simply subdividing land near a new airport. He envisioned an integrated environment where business, residences, recreation, water, and green space were designed as parts of one larger vision. The spaces between the buildings mattered — the landscape was part of the plan, not an afterthought.
Las Colinas required solutions for stormwater, drainage, and floodplain conditions. Conventional engineering solutions were available, but Carpenter wanted the infrastructure to contribute to the environment being created — waterways were incorporated into the development and connected with Lake Carolyn and the larger drainage system, helping create the Lake Carolyn and Mandalay Canal environment that became part of Las Colinas's identity.
Function solved the problem. Design made it a place.
As the Las Colinas vision was taking shape, Ben Carpenter wrote what became known as "The Memo," establishing the high development standards expected within Las Colinas. Decades later, when architects were being solicited for the Irving Convention Center at Las Colinas, the architectural RFP specifically referenced Carpenter's Memo and the standards it had established — the original standard still mattered, decades later.
Long before Jerry Maguire wrote his famous late-night mission statement about what his business ought to become, Ben Carpenter had "The Memo." Fortunately for Carpenter, his memo worked out a little better — Jerry's got him fired; Carpenter's was still influencing development decades later. Both represent an attempt to define what an organization should become and what standards should guide it. A vision becomes much easier to preserve when the standard has been defined.
In 1984, the Mustangs of Las Colinas were installed at Williams Square — commissioned by Ben Carpenter and created by wildlife sculptor Robert Glen, nine bronze mustangs depicted running through water, becoming one of the area's most recognizable works of public art. If Carpenter's Memo expressed the standard in words, Williams Square eventually expressed it visually.
That visual identity even found its way onto television. The 1987 episode of Dallas titled "Lovers and Other Liars" filmed at both Williams Square and the Mandalay Canal Walk — a fitting appearance for a community whose architecture, public art, and waterways were designed, from the outset, to be memorable.
Williams Square did not remain exceptional automatically simply because it had been exceptionally designed. Nearly four decades after the Mustangs were installed, the plaza underwent a major revitalization, reopening in 2022 following approximately $7.8 million in improvements — restoration of the Mustangs, fountain and lighting improvements, pedestrian improvements, seating, trees, and landscaping. It wasn't that the original design failed. It was valuable enough to reinvest in. The original vision was preserved not by refusing to change, but by continuing to invest in it.
Designed with intention.
Built to a standard.
Maintained with purpose.
A commercial property in Las Colinas can begin with mature trees, carefully planned entrances, architectural landscaping, courtyards, and thoughtful plant material — but the original designer doesn't return every week to make sure the property still represents the original vision. Trees mature. Shrubs outgrow spaces. Irrigation systems age. Turf experiences North Texas heat, drought, freezes, and traffic. Thousands of small maintenance decisions determine whether an exceptional property remains exceptional or gradually becomes ordinary.
The standard is already high. The job is to keep it there.
A property manager shouldn't have to discover irrigation failures first, identify declining turf first, or repeatedly point out overgrown shrubs. See how Greenly's Four Layers work in practice. What needs attention? What should be preserved? What's beginning to decline? What will this landscape need next season — not merely this week? Landscape management isn't simply executing a mowing schedule. It's actively managing the landscape as part of the commercial property.
Your property manager shouldn't have to manage the landscaper. We manage the landscape.
More than fifty years ago, Ben Carpenter understood something important when he began imagining Las Colinas. The buildings mattered — but so did everything around them. The trees mattered. The water mattered. The open spaces mattered. The landscape mattered. DFW International Airport helped create an extraordinary opportunity, Carpenter's vision transformed that opportunity into a place, the Memo established a standard, Lake Carolyn and the canals demonstrated what thoughtful design could accomplish, the Mustangs gave the community an icon, and continued reinvestment demonstrated that exceptional places require continued stewardship.
Great places don't stay great by accident. They have to be cared for. For the commercial properties of Las Colinas, that's where Greenly comes in.
People who notice, who communicate, and who understand that the appearance of a commercial property affects the people who work there, visit there, lease there, own it, and manage it.
High standards require repeatable execution. Issues must be identified, work must be planned, property management must know what's happening, and someone must follow through.
Not simply grass that has been cut — a commercial property that looks intentionally cared for, at the entrance, around the buildings, and along every walkway, week after week, season after season.
Property managers and owners in Las Colinas can request a complimentary property assessment from Greenly Landscapes — no obligation, just a professional conversation about your property's landscape program.
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