The only locally owned luxury brokerage in Dallas now has its name on a gleaming Turtle Creek high-rise headquarters.
Coinciding with its 60th birthday this year, Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty has just moved into its new Dallas flagship office after a consolidation move to prestigious Turtle Creek Boulevard at the edge of Uptown. The firm was able to snap up entire floors at 3131 Turtle Creek, a modernist, marble-and-glass building, and customize spaces as it wished.
The brokerage formerly had offices on Lovers Lane, an Uptown office, and a Ranch and Land office, also in Uptown. It has offices in Fort Worth (Mira Vista), Lakewood, Southlake, and Plano/Frisco.
The spacious new Dallas office not only makes room for a growing agent population — fresh new agents are joining virtually weekly — but it also coincides with the company’s 60 years of leadership and success, to be celebrated throughout 2020.
REAL Trends: Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty Has Highest Average Home Price Sales in Texas
BFSIR is celebrating more good news, too. The independent firm REAL Trends, which ranks brokerages and agents across the country, has revealed in its newest ranking that Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty has the highest average home sales price in the entire state of Texas.
The new headquarters almost crackles with new energy, with soaring, unobstructed views of Uptown, Downtown, all the way up to Midtown.
In the move to 3131 Turtle Creek, the brokerage has added an entire second floor to its Dallas operation. It now occupies two floors instead of one, totaling an impressive 22,000 square feet, with bespoke spaces not only for agents but also for its sales, marketing, executive, commercial, financial, and tech departments.
“The scenery change has provided the ideal opportunity to rethink various aspects of our environment,” says president and CEO Robbie Briggs, “how we interact, how we network, how we collaborate.”
Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty worked with Staffelbach on the custom design of its new headquarters. The noted design firm’s other iconic North Texas clients include The Crescent, Carlson Capital, Hunt Oil Company, American Airlines, and many more.
The move to 3131 Turtle Creek comes with many upgrades for the brokerage: more open-concept areas, more co-working spaces, more lounge areas, state-of-the-art conference rooms, and private phone-call rooms. The new office brims with motorized sit-down or stand-up desks, gathering spaces, stunning contemporary art, and a spectacular new training room to be used for seminars, lunches, guest lectures, agent huddles, team meetings, and more.
Perhaps my favored art: photos of vintage Dallas properties collected when Robbie was president of the Park Cities Historic Preservation Society.
What Agents Want in 2020: Lounge-Kitchen-Cafe
“The brokerage really thought about how agents work now, and their needs,” says editorial director Rob Brinkley. “The biggest hit has been the cafe,” he says of a large, light-filled lounge that acts as a communal kitchen and spontaneous meeting room.
“Agents are naturally gathering there,” he says, “and that is where some real deals are happening, right around the cappuccino machine.”
The brokerage hasn’t just shaken up its space: it has shaken up its training and technology, improving its digital platform for agents, and hiring the firm’s first-ever full-time Director of Training, Mary-Clare Hill, who leads agent education, development, training, and inspiration.
Recent renovations and upgrades to 3131 Turtle Creek itself have introduced thoroughly modern elements, all while preserving the classical aesthetic of the building. The many tenant perks now include a tenant Wi-Fi lounge, a tenant conference/snack room Brinkley jokingly calls “The Admirals Club”; bike lockers, private lockers, private showers, even a golf simulator. Luxurious services for 3131’s tenants include a concierge, driver, laundry pick-up and group fitness classes. The Class A building was built in 1971 in the timeless International Style — a white marble base contrasted with black glass curtain walls — by famed Dallas real estate developer J.L. Williams. It was one of the first office towers on the predominantly residential Turtle Creek Boulevard.
The new Dallas headquarters for Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty is also fomenting an exciting new synergy among agents and staff, as it unites formerly separate divisions. The new space makes room for three of the company’s nine offices: Lovers Lane (formerly at 5600 West Lovers Lane), Uptown/Downtown (formerly at 2500 Cedar Springs Road) and the Dallas branch of its Ranch and Land division (formerly at 2913 Fairmount Street). The brokerage had headquartered at 5600 West Lovers Lane since 1989 — when it employed 30 agents. The company now has more than 400 agents across North Texas, based in multiple offices, including Fort Worth, Southlake, Lakewood and Plano/Frisco.
“The new headquarters has elevated the importance of networking and collaborating with agents who specialize in Uptown or downtown properties, or farm & ranch,” says CEO Robbie Briggs. “It’s all about bringing groups together.”
And, yes, the Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty name is proudly on the building, on the beautiful white marble band that wraps its base.
“We’ve opened new doors and are doing lots of exciting new things,” says Briggs, of the bold new headquarters, “but all with the same commitment to serving our clients.”
