Lone Star Success: Dallas’ Top Office Spaces With Hanna Henley, Real Finds Podcast #30 Transcript
Gordon Lamphere: Hi, I’m Gordon Lamphere with the Real Finds Podcast, the podcast series where we interview key entrepreneurs, scientists, and activists who are shaping real estate and, as a result, our world. On today’s podcast, we have Hanna Henley. Hanna is an associate with Cushman & Wakefield’s tenant advisory division in Dallas, focused on office leasing and tenant representation. On the podcast, we discuss the ins and outs of the current office market, work from home, and the future of office. It’s well worth a listen. Hanna, thanks for hopping on the podcast today.
Hanna Henley: Thank you for having me. I’m excited.
Gordon Lamphere: We always like to get to know folks first. I hear you’re a Red Raider. Is that true?
Hanna Henley: That is true. I was going to say I bleed red, but that’s just blood.
From Fashion to Real Estate
Gordon Lamphere: Before we get into real estate, you have a design background, which is unique for the industry. We’ve got a lot of soft studies folks around, but not always design folks. Can you tell us about it?
Hanna Henley: It’s not super extensive, but here’s the background. I grew up thinking I was going to move to New York and be editor-in-chief of some major fashion magazine like Vogue. I was convinced. Then college came around and I realized my dad would only pay for in-state, so we were staying in Texas. Texas Tech had a fashion program, so I started in fashion management. Then I realized it wasn’t the job I thought it was, and that I didn’t necessarily want to be in fashion; I wanted to make enough money to wear all the fashion I liked. So I pivoted to a business major, switched into the business school my sophomore year, got an internship at a commercial real estate company here, started with them right after graduation, and I’ve been doing it ever since.
Gordon Lamphere: Why real estate? A lot of people have their why. What got you in?
Hanna Henley: My dad is a leasing agent, so I grew up seeing what he did day to day. He had kids a little later in life, and at a certain point in this industry you don’t have to grind as hard as you did at the beginning. I’d see him get home at three and leave for work at ten and think, he doesn’t seem like he works that much. I was wrong. There’s a lot at the beginning. But I was telling him I didn’t think I could do fashion, and he said, just try real estate. I said, no, that’s what you do, I have no interest in that. Then I got my internship and ended up loving it.
Gordon Lamphere: I’m a fourth-generation broker and developer, and a property manager for two generations on my mom’s side, so I understand not originally wanting to get involved. I certainly didn’t.
Hanna Henley: Exactly. At the beginning I said, no, that’s what you do.
Why Texas Is Booming
Gordon Lamphere: What we really want to learn about is Texas and its success. Texas has been the place to be, give or take Florida or Nevada. What are you seeing in the Dallas market? You open The Real Deal, the Washington Post, the New York Times, or the Wall Street Journal, and all you see is businesses moving to Texas, Dallas, and Houston. What’s going on in office?
Hanna Henley: Texas is booming. A lot of companies are relocating here. I believe we’ve had about 347 corporate relocations since 2010. I could be wrong, so don’t quote me, but it’s a very high number. Largely it’s the favorable business environment. Low taxes, not a ton of bureaucracy, so it’s easier to get up and running. There’s a huge labor force to pull from in Texas and specifically Dallas. We have SMU, UT isn’t far, TCU, Baylor, Texas Tech, so many good colleges for employers to pull from. And great public school systems, which is a big factor. In a lot of other parts of the country, you spend so much to live in a certain area and the public schools are terrible, so you also spend a bunch on private school. The public schooling here is incredible. And we have great infrastructure. In Dallas specifically, two incredible airports: Love Field, which is domestic but so small and ten minutes from my house that flying is easy, a little too easy, and DFW, the second busiest airport in the world. There are a lot of parts that make doing business easier here than in other parts of the country, and it’s a lot more affordable.
Gordon Lamphere: Affordability, logistics, and universities certainly drive growth. Do you think affordability is ultimately the primary driver when businesses are looking at moving, or are there other factors?
Hanna Henley: Affordability is a big one. The central location is helpful. The tax regulations make it very favorable to relocate. The only thing that sways people the wrong way sometimes, and I don’t blame them, is the 110-degree heat we’re experiencing right now. But affordability is a big part of it, along with those other factors.
Flight to Quality and the Future of Office in Dallas
Gordon Lamphere: I lived in Louisiana with my wife for almost five years, so I understand the heat. Speaking of heat, the return-to-office conversation is heating up. Some folks are in the right-sizing or downsizing camp. Some say things will be generally the same, and I think they’re probably wrong. And some say office is dead. What are you seeing in Dallas, and what does the future of office look like there?
Hanna Henley: We’re seeing trends fairly consistent with other markets, and the biggest is flight to quality. To entice employees back to the office, you need to give them an experience. We’re seeing companies that were in 100,000 square feet downsize to maybe 30,000 and move into much nicer buildings while paying about the same as before, or even less, because they’re occupying so much less space. So flight to quality, and at least a thirty percent decrease in size. Prior to COVID, it was very important to office near where the CEO lived. Now companies are much more cognizant of being in a central location that’s easy for all employees to reach. One thing we can do at Cushman is provide a general mean location if they give us their employees’ addresses. So people are rethinking where their headquarters is. Amenities in a building are important, but more as a checkbox. It’s funny, there are always beautiful fitness centers in these double-Class A buildings, and no one’s ever in them. It’s nice to have, but what people are really focused on is location. So the main trends are decreasing in size, flight to quality, rethinking where your office is, and creating a hybrid schedule. I don’t think people will ever be in the office like before, and I personally see the benefit of getting to create your hours a little more. I think the hybrid schedule is going to stay, and I’m happy about that. But people will still be in Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and work from home Monday and Friday.
Gordon Lamphere: Harvard Business Review and several studies I’ve done videos on talk about location ultimately driving quality. What are your clients looking for in location, besides proximity to their homes?
Hanna Henley: Location close to homes is important, but now it’s walkability. Can you walk to restaurants? Is there walkable fitness? A walkable happy hour? People want to be in the mix, in the hustle of the business climate, in a building with a lot of energy. Here you find that in Uptown, in Knox-Henderson, and even in Legacy in Frisco, a suburb of Dallas, where a lot of people have relocated because they’ve built these campuses of multiple buildings with restaurants, multiple gyms, and conferencing facilities. So the biggest thing is being walkable and being a place people actually want to go every day. I walk into some of these call centers, super gray high cubes with no windows, and it’s depressing. I couldn’t do that. Create an office environment you’d want to work in.
Gordon Lamphere: You’re probably too young for the nineties movie Office Space, but that’s what most of the office market was in the mid to late nineties.
Hanna Henley: So bad. I walk in and think, this is so not it. We’re also seeing a lot more subleases. Prior to COVID, people weren’t as interested in sublease space, but now it’s a really good bridge. It’s typically fully furnished, below market, and shorter term. It’s a way to dip your toes into a market or a building. Sublease space is popular right now.
What Quality Actually Means
Gordon Lamphere: Quality is ultimately driving a lot of growth, and it’s a buzzword we love to throw around. You’re a design person and can see the patterns in what occupiers view as quality. What’s really driving that?
Hanna Henley: Updated finishes, definitely. You don’t want to walk in to pink marble from the eighties. There’s tons of new construction popping out of the ground, and that double-Class A office is getting leased so quickly. It’s the A-minus and B that are struggling. It’s the newness of the buildings, and people are experimenting with everything. A building in Dallas just put in a pickleball court. So unique amenities, lots of natural light. One thing we’re seeing across the board is a shift from exterior offices with interior cubes to interior offices with exterior cubes, because it lets so much more natural light into the space. Lots of light, lots of glass, amenities, even if people don’t use them, because it’s nice to have the option to work out midday. An updated building with amenities in a good location. It’s crazy how much more people are drawn to trophy assets than they were before COVID.
Is There a Way Out for the Class B Landlord?
Gordon Lamphere: Is there anything somebody in a Class B building can do? One of our investors took back a building that was about ten percent leased, put a couple million into gutting and rehabbing it, and now it’s relatively profitable. Others in the Chicago market, like Bell Works, have done it very effectively. Are there things landlords in Dallas can do to move a building from B to A-minus or A? Or, like San Francisco, New York, and even Mexico City, are you seeing potential conversions? Is there a way out for the B landlord, or do they just take their lumps?
Hanna Henley: Honestly a good question. There’s definitely still a market for tenants in B buildings, groups that are okay with it, so continue targeting people looking for cost-effective options. But one huge deterrent that might not be top of mind is the first impression of a building. First impressions are such a big deal. An updated, bright lobby is huge, even if it’s just replacing the flooring, repainting, and adding some natural light. That has more impact than people realize. I’ve gone on tours where clients step into the building and say, no, this isn’t it, next building. We haven’t even seen the space, but they’ve made up their minds. So take the time to update someone’s first impression. Also smaller things, like making sure the outside is kept up, so it looks refreshed and clean. Another thing I’ve seen a few groups do successfully is convert a smaller office that’s been vacant a while into a tenant lounge, or add a room with some fitness equipment. If you can list it, you’ll get more tours, because some people say they have to have a fitness center in the building, even if it’s not extensive. Overall, figure out how to leave a lasting first impression and don’t discount how important that first step into the building is.
Gordon Lamphere: I’m a firm believer in first impressions. With our landlords, we talk about the three places you can easily take an L, the three L’s: landscaping, lobby, and lot. If the parking lot is beat up, that’s minimal in pricing, but it can ruin a deal. Someone pulls up and says, this is a tired building. Dead bushes or bad grass, and you’re done. A lobby from the seventies or eighties, done. And the rest of the building could be Class A. On fitness centers, a lot of folks we talk to want to put one in, and there’s debate about how. In Dallas, is it mostly checking the box, or a wow factor?
Hanna Henley: In trophy assets, brand-new buildings, it’s important to have a nice fitness center, and you need to invest. It’s more than checking a box. People in really nice buildings like the ability not to have to leave. In smaller buildings, one thing I’ve seen recently is not even a fitness center, just showers, so if you want to walk at lunch you can shower after. I haven’t had clients get super excited about that. For Class A-minus and B, I never see people in those fitness centers. Those are checking the box. The only time it’s not a checkbox is when the building is nice enough that the gym can compete with wherever you already work out. That’s when it’s important to invest.
Open Versus Private Offices
Gordon Lamphere: You mentioned more interior privates and open office with natural light. On a podcast premiering around now, we talked at length about open versus private offices. What are you seeing in that battle in Dallas?
Hanna Henley: It’s been evolving. When hybrid first came out, people implemented very open, collaborative spaces, maybe three or four offices on a whole floor and the rest workstations, with exposed ceilings and polished concrete. Aesthetically beautiful. But now people realize a completely open plan isn’t something they want to be in all day, every day. They want to take a phone call in private, especially if they’ve been working from home and might not want to be on a call in front of every person in a cube. So it’s important to have a collaborative environment that fosters social interaction, but you also need to give employees space to peel off for a personal call or to put their head down and do deep work. Just cubes isn’t enough. You need different types of work environments within your space.
Gordon Lamphere: I can see a Fortune 500 company out my window, and several other major companies here, Aon Hewitt, Zebra, are using a model with installed private booths for calls and deep work. Is that something you’re seeing in Dallas, or is it an exception?
Hanna Henley: People definitely love those call rooms. I’ve seen landlords put those booths in their lobby, which aesthetically I don’t love, so I’m not encouraging that, but having the flexibility to pop into a call room is super important. They’re here to stay. I just closed a deal where the office is primarily open, with a row of call rooms in the back. One funny thing: if you don’t test the acoustics ahead of time, you can get a call room that echoes and everyone around you can hear perfectly. So test it before you commit, and make sure it’s padded enough. But call rooms are a great gap-filler if you have open space and don’t want a full build-out. You can pop them in and give employees more privacy.
The Return-to-Office Fight
Gordon Lamphere: Speaking of privacy, a lot of employees love the privacy of work from home, and the fight between work from home and return to work is heating up. Here it’s no longer simmering, it’s a full fire. What are you seeing in Dallas?
Hanna Henley: The number one deterrent to going to the office is the commute. People push back: I don’t want to drive. That goes hand in hand with location. If you get a location employees are happy with, they’re more agreeable. Overall, people are going back. There’s much more traffic than a year ago, and I think deep down people realize the importance of going back to some degree. You can’t have culture without being in the office. There’s no visibility to leadership if you’re building your career, and it’s hard to collaborate. Going to the office is important; you just have to give employees flexibility. A lot of companies meet them in the middle: work from home Monday and Friday, office Tuesday through Thursday. I’ve also seen hours shift, going in later or earlier to avoid rush hour. But the fight is still on. People don’t want to go back. Now that they’ve had a solid taste of working from home, they don’t want to give it up. I never work from home, I’m in the office every day, and two weeks ago I worked from home on a Monday and thought, wait, this is pretty nice. But I wasn’t as productive, and I missed social interaction that happened in the office that day. It’s nice, but it’s different. People will have to get used to the new normal and be comfortable in and out of the office. And to make employees comfortable in the office, you have to create an environment they want to be in.
Gordon Lamphere: We’re an organization that’s been around almost 150 years, and the institutional knowledge that exists if I walk in either direction down the hall is something I couldn’t easily get from home. I don’t know how I could have been a young broker getting the full experience and learning how to talk to clients.
Hanna Henley: You need to listen to how people have their conversations. You need to hear how people cold call. You need to be able to walk into someone’s office and get an answer in ten seconds. It’s so much easier to do business in the office. It takes longer out of office, and in an industry where efficiency is so important, it’s just not as efficient.
Marketing and LinkedIn for Brokers
Gordon Lamphere: Speaking of efficiency, as a millennial, and I think you’re Gen Z, we get asked all the time by more experienced brokers about marketing. Folks like Coy Davidson have done it incredibly well. I’ve seen you’re on TikTok and doing all sorts of marketing on LinkedIn. What are you seeing from the younger generation of brokers, and what’s a tidbit of advice for more senior brokers dipping a toe into social media?
Hanna Henley: With marketing, the biggest goal is staying in front of your prospect. I’m honestly not as good about it as I should be, but when I’m focused, I post weekly on LinkedIn and send monthly e-blasts to all my prospects and clients. Recently I’ve been dabbling in business TikTok. I thought it was all dances at first, but I’ve been giving cold calling tips. It’s still new, and I’ll report back on any progress. LinkedIn is so important, and it’s good to have a big presence there. I noticed you have quite the presence, which is amazing.
Also, keep the material you send relevant. Brokers often send a market report. We live and breathe the office market, but our prospects might not care about the vacancy rate in a submarket. Put yourself in their shoes. I recently set up lunches with prospects who are now clients and candidly asked, as a decision maker, what would catch your eye if a broker sent you something? No surprise, they said they don’t care about vacancy rates and the intricacies of our business. They want to know how people are getting back to the office, what people are looking for in their space, and what their competitors are doing. So be in touch with what your prospect actually wants, and create material that’s visually aesthetic. That’s the design in me. A lot of marketing material looks off the shelf and corporate with no thought. I set time aside each week specifically for marketing: what am I going to do, what do people want to hear about, how am I going to create it? And I go on Pinterest and keep business inspiration boards with branding I like. It’s funny, residential agents are ahead of the curve with marketing. They’re very good at it, so I like to creep on residential agents and, not copy, but take a few ideas. Be top of mind, be on as many platforms as you can, and be consistent, but not so consistent that you annoy people into unfollowing you.
Gordon Lamphere: Pinterest is probably one of the most underutilized tools. I love it.
Hanna Henley: I got off Instagram recently, and instead of scrolling Instagram I’d scroll Pinterest, and it was such a good month. It’s very underutilized.
Gordon Lamphere: Speaking of underutilized, LinkedIn is one of the most hated-on parts of social media. What’s the use for LinkedIn with your clients? So many people dog it, but I think there’s a lot of applicability, at least in our industry.
Hanna Henley: People in our industry, especially client-facing, need to be on LinkedIn. That’s where you find your prospects, and it’s social media to connect with them. People forget that a huge part of our business is building relationships, and you can build relationships on LinkedIn. So get on it, and post relevant information about once a week to show you’re a thought leader and an expert in your industry. A lot of my day is cold calling, so I use it for prospecting too. I’ll make a call, add them on LinkedIn, and send a message, another way to hit prospects. I have Premium, so I can see who views my profile, which is a little creepy, but if a prospect views my profile, I’ll call them. I won’t say, hey, I saw you looked at my LinkedIn, but I know it’s a good time because I’m top of mind. So: build your brand, stay in front of prospects, and get in touch with prospects. I’ve gotten a few deals off LinkedIn. It becomes kind of fun once you get to a certain point. I scroll through it and learn a lot about the Dallas market and the market overall. And I connect with anybody, because if your prospect leaves for a new company, you can see that on LinkedIn and call them: you moved to this company, do they need help with their office space? It’s a way to get connected and build relationships.
Gordon Lamphere: For us, it’s a huge chance to find startups. We’re in a huge pharma market, and people who leave a large corporation are often creating a spin-off. Making that call is always a great opportunity, and a very underutilized platform.
The Final Four
Gordon Lamphere: Not much left, but we have one more hurdle: our Final Four. One of my favorite questions: where do you see the future of office going ten years out? You’re early in your career, but you have a lot of experience, and younger individuals are often better futurists.
Hanna Henley: People will always have office locations. You can’t have a company culture without an office or some type of hub to fall back on. But the amount of space companies take will shrink. People don’t need as much as they once did. Hybrid will stay forever; I don’t anticipate that going away. Overall, business has gotten more casual. It’s shifting from voicemails and calls to texting and email. What people wear has gotten more casual. Before COVID, people were suited up every day, and now if I see a broker in a tie, I ask what they have going on. It’s going to keep getting easier for prospects to get information, so as brokers we have to keep educating ourselves and be at the forefront of trends. Sometimes clients call and ask about something they read online, and I haven’t even heard of it yet. Commercial real estate will always be around; it’s just more casual. And the zombie buildings, buildings that are basically dead inside, are slowly going to get converted to multifamily and mixed use. I don’t think we’ll have as much Class B or A-minus office. The trophy assets are the buildings that will continue to be built.
Gordon Lamphere: You need a reason to come into work these days, and often that B or C building just isn’t enough.
Hanna Henley: You have to give your folks an experience. You really do.
Gordon Lamphere: We always love taking a step back on this podcast. You’re young in your career, but what would you say to a young Hanna in high school?
Hanna Henley: The biggest thing I’ve realized is to embrace being uncomfortable. A lot of people feel uncomfortable, and it is uncomfortable, so they run from it. I’ve realized that the more uncomfortable you feel and the more you step outside your comfort zone, the more you grow, and if you can get over that feeling, you come out so much stronger. But so many people run from it instead of going through it, so they’re never tested and never have the confidence that they can be uncomfortable and come out stronger. When I’m having a bad day, I’ve learned to change my mindset, because I know something will come from it. I’ll learn something or get stronger at something. And there’s a lot of noise in any industry, but especially this one. A lot of no’s, people telling you that you might not be cut out for it, people with big egos who might not be the nicest. Put your head down and put blinders up. Don’t worry about what other people are saying or thinking. Just get to work and take care of what you need to take care of. A lot of times people spend way too much time worrying and not enough time working, and what they’re worrying about comes true because they’re not working. So do the work, put your head down, and block out the background noise.
Gordon Lamphere: None of us in this industry could make cold calls if we weren’t able to be a little uncomfortable.
Hanna Henley: Even to this day, I still think, okay, time to make my calls.
Gordon Lamphere: Fantastic advice. We always like to have guests recommend a book, to get new perspectives. What would you recommend?
Hanna Henley: I’m a big reader. Right now I’m rereading Shoe Dog, Phil Knight’s autobiography about building Nike. Every time I read it, I’m blown away by the hurdles he went through. People look at him from the outside and think his life seems so glamorous, but he worked very hard for it. It’s important to see where people started and where they’ve gotten, so I love books about people written by the person. I also love Good to Great. One of my favorite quotes from it is that good is the enemy of great. A lot of times we’re good at something and that’s enough, but that book talks about going a step further. For cold calling and business development, I read Fanatical Prospecting when I started my career. It’s a great blueprint for how to cold call, what to say, and how to follow up. And the last is Atomic Habits. You don’t realize how important your daily habits are until you start implementing good ones, and over time you see the impact on your everyday life.
Gordon Lamphere: Atomic Habits and Shoe Dog have both been mentioned before, and they’re great reads. We’ll have to pick up the others, because good really is the enemy of great. One last thing, and the most important question: is there somebody we should be talking to next? The whole reason we created this is to reach out to young, fresh voices that aren’t getting enough publicity.
Hanna Henley: I thought long and hard about this, and it came to me recently. Within Cushman & Wakefield, there’s a network of women my age who’ve all been in the industry a similar amount of time, in different markets. Me in Dallas, and Atlanta, Colorado, Chicago, Florida, and San Francisco. We meet monthly and chat about what’s going on in our markets, what’s working and what’s not. We started off just hopping on calls and have become very good friends, and every time I get on a call with them I learn so much. I’m not sure if you’re able to, but you should do a group podcast with the whole squad.
Gordon Lamphere: We’d love to do that. We need to get those names, and we could even do it live on LinkedIn. It would be a great opportunity to hear from a lot of young brokers about what’s going on in more markets.
Hanna Henley: It’s amazing to compare the trends in my market versus theirs. Some markets are quicker to pick up on things, so the faster ones are a step ahead. That monthly call, and the group text going daily, is a huge support system.
Gordon Lamphere: Thank you so much for hopping on. One final question: what’s the best way for somebody to reach out to you?
Hanna Henley: LinkedIn. I’m always checking my LinkedIn messages. I’m public on Instagram, and I’m back on the app, so I check my DMs there. I’m new on TikTok, so if you’re on it, follow me. And my email is [email protected]. There’s no H at the end of my first name, so it’s H-A-N-N-A, Henley.
Gordon Lamphere: Hanna, thank you so much for hopping on, and we’ll have to have you on in the future.
Hanna Henley: Absolutely. It was so great getting to talk with you.
Gordon Lamphere: Thanks again to Hanna. If you enjoyed the podcast, please give us a like, a follow, or a review. Your comments, interactions, and subscriptions truly matter and help us continue to provide quality guests. You can follow us on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. I’m Gordon Lamphere with the Real Finds Podcast. Thank you for listening.
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