What's in a Name? Developers Are Hoping Projects Called Legacy Will Be a Hit

By now you've probably heard of Legacy West. Of course, who hasn't?The $3 billion Plano project is one of the country's most successful real estate developments. Legacy West soon will be home to more than 20,000 workers for big companies including JPMorgan Chase, Liberty Mutual Insurance and Toyota.Before there was Legacy West, there was Legacy, the business park Dallas businessman H. Ross Perot's family started almost 40 years ago.Back then, what's now Legacy was just acres of cotton fields and corn patches. The farmland was owned by several pioneer Collin County families.Perot hired some "name experts" to come up with something catchy to call the huge corporate campus development that would be home to his Electronic Data Systems.Ross Perot Jr. says that after his father paid them to be brilliant, he didn't like their suggestions.The elder Perot himself coined the Legacy name. "It was meant to honor the 'legacy' of what the people of EDS had created," Ross Jr. recalls.Legacy is now one of the hottest names in the North Texas real estate business.With the runaway success of Legacy West, other developers and property owners are hoping to catch a little Legacy magic.The new owners of the J.C. Penney headquarters are remodeling the 1980s buildings into a corporate enclave they call the Campus at Legacy West.A new office complex planned farther south on the Dallas North Tollway has been dubbed Legacy South.I guess Legacy East and Legacy North are still up for grabs. But you'd better be quick; it won't be long before some eager builder stakes a claim.  Continue reading...