Richardson's Telecom Corridor office and business-park properties depend on landscape programs that hold up to consistent tenant and visitor traffic. Greenly Landscapes supports Richardson property managers with maintenance, irrigation management, and seasonal enhancement services built for corporate-campus-scale properties.
Richardson, Texas Local History
Richardson was founded in 1873 after the Houston & Texas Central Railway established a depot in the area, and the community was named for railroad executive A.S. Richardson. Early Richardson was very small — a general store, a post office, a drug store, and a small collection of homes.
Richardson grew when it became better connected. In 1908, the electric Interurban began serving Richardson, and in 1924, Greenville Avenue — historically known as the Red Brick Road — created another important transportation connection. Each new connection brought people, commerce, and opportunity. But Richardson remained a relatively small North Texas town.
Richardson had approximately 1,300 residents around 1950. Central Expressway reached Richardson in 1954, dramatically changing the city's relationship with Dallas and the larger region. Land that had seemed removed from Dallas suddenly became much more accessible — businesses could reach customers, workers could reach employers, and families could reach jobs. Residential and commercial development accelerated, and by 1960, Richardson's population was approaching 17,000. The road changed the geography of opportunity.
These weren't the things that made Richardson economically important, but they were part of what made Richardson a community. The Como Motel operated at 721 S. Central Expressway; a 1971 advertisement promoted its connectivity to Dallas, including the claim that downtown was approximately 18 minutes away — Richardson was selling connection. Nearby, the Golden Eagle Restaurant opened in 1958 near Central Expressway and Belt Line, named for the Richardson High School Golden Eagles, and a Kip's Big Boy operated on Belt Line Road. While engineers arrived, neighborhoods were built, and corporations opened offices, people still needed places to eat, meet friends, and raise families. Richardson was becoming something much bigger. But it was still somebody's hometown.
Prairie Creek represents the residential side of Richardson's postwar transformation — a creek, mature trees, and an established residential environment that grew alongside the city's commercial and technological rise. Roger Staubach lived in Prairie Creek and raised his family there. During the same period Richardson was becoming an important business and technology center, it was also becoming a place where families established roots. Staubach is a recognizable example of that.
Collins Radio purchased Richardson property in 1955, and Richardson operations opened in 1958. The City has described Collins's arrival as helping usher Richardson into its electronic era — Richardson was no longer merely becoming a larger suburb; it was developing an economic identity around electronics, engineering, communications, and technology. Richardson-based Collins and Alpha Corporation engineers were involved in systems used in the first two-way radio voice transmission via the Echo I communications satellite in 1960.
Railroad tracks connected Richardson to other towns. Highways connected Richardson to the metropolitan area. Electronics began connecting people across much greater distances. Richardson had found another kind of connection.
The growing concentration of electronics companies, telecommunications companies, engineering talent, and technology businesses eventually became associated with Richardson's Telecom Corridor®. The Richardson Chamber has historically described Richardson as an "Electronics Center of the Southwest." Richardson's technology identity was never one building or one company — it became a concentration of businesses, engineers, infrastructure, education, and research. Where would the talent come from?
Texas Instruments founders Eugene McDermott, J. Erik Jonsson, and Cecil Green recognized that North Texas technology companies needed highly educated engineers and scientists, and that talented Texans were often leaving the region for advanced education. Rather than simply raise the problem, they helped build an institution to solve it. In 1961, the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest was established, with Lloyd V. Berkner as its first president. Construction on its Richardson campus began in 1963, the Founders Building opened in 1964, and in 1969 the institution became The University of Texas at Dallas.
Ray Childress starred at J.J. Pearce High School before playing at Texas A&M University and going on to a 12-season NFL career, principally with the Houston Oilers. Scott Turner grew up in Richardson, played football and ran track at J.J. Pearce High School, played at the University of Illinois, and spent nine seasons in the NFL before entering public service — he currently serves as U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. And Gordon Keith, a Richardson High School graduate, became a longtime DFW broadcaster associated with SportsRadio 1310 The Ticket. Different careers, different generations — different Richardson stories.
Built on connections.
Strengthened by innovation.
Sustained by stewardship.
More than a century after Richardson was established around a railroad depot, rail became central to Richardson's development again. In 2002, Richardson became the first North Texas suburb outside Dallas to receive DART light rail service, with stations including Spring Valley, Arapaho Center, Galatyn Park, and CityLine/Bush. This time, Richardson didn't simply grow because railroad tracks happened to pass through town — the city increasingly built development around access to rail. Development emerged around Spring Valley Station; Galatyn Park became integrated into an environment of offices, residential development, a hotel, and the Eisemann Center; and CityLine/Bush developed around access to DART rail, Central Expressway, and the President George Bush Turnpike into a large mixed-use environment of corporate offices, residences, restaurants, retail, hotels, and public spaces.
In 1873, Richardson formed because a railroad created a connection. More than a century later, Richardson was once again building around rail.
Success creates its own challenge: what happens when a district built for an earlier generation of corporate development has to serve the next one? Richardson has been repositioning roughly 1,200 acres in the historic heart of the Telecom Corridor as the Richardson Innovation Quarter — The IQ® — with goals of a more connected, mixed-use, walkable, innovation-oriented employment environment. Arapaho Center Station provides a connection between the historic technology district and modern transit infrastructure, though transit-oriented redevelopment planned around Arapaho Center was placed on hold in 2026 due to market and financing conditions. Richardson isn't abandoning its technology identity — it's adapting it.
Central Expressway could open. Collins could build. The Telecom Corridor could develop. UT Dallas could expand. DART could arrive. CityLine could be developed. But every successful development eventually reaches the same stage — it becomes established, and the job changes. The question moves from "what should we build?" to "how do we protect and improve what we've already built?" Richardson contains mature neighborhoods, established trees, older office campuses, established retail centers, and newer mixed-use developments alike. Maturity can create value — the kind of character that can't simply be installed overnight — but maturity requires management.
What should remain? What needs pruning? What has outgrown its original space? Where has irrigation stopped serving the landscape effectively? There's a difference between performing landscape tasks and managing a landscape. See how Greenly's Four Layers work in practice.
Your property manager shouldn't have to manage the landscaper. We manage the landscape.
The first connection was a railroad. Then came the Interurban, the Red Brick Road, Central Expressway, Collins Radio, electronics, UT Dallas, the Telecom Corridor, DART, Galatyn Park, CityLine, and the Innovation Quarter. Underneath all of it was Prairie Creek, the Como, the Golden Eagle, Kip's Big Boy, Richardson High, and J.J. Pearce — places where people lived, ate, learned, worked, raised families, and started stories of their own. Richardson's history isn't simply about growth. It's about building connections — and taking care of what those connections make possible.
Getting a property built is one chapter. Keeping it valuable is another.
People who notice things, communicate, understand mature commercial properties, and identify developing problems — without waiting for the property manager to discover everything first.
A dependable system for inspecting, communicating, maintaining, planning, and following through. Consistency doesn't mean blindly repeating the same tasks every year — it means allowing the landscape to change when conditions require it.
Healthy turf, managed trees and shrubs, functioning irrigation, and commercial landscapes that continue supporting the properties around them — week after week, season after season.
Property managers and owners in Richardson 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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