Every Last Word

Dallas Innovates’ signature series capturing what leaders across North Texas are saying — in their own words — about innovation, impact, and what’s next.

The Last Word: Why the NYTimes Says ‘Dallas Is the New Dubai’ of Luxe Restaurants

by | May 23, 2023
If you want a seat in some of Dallas' hottest new high-end restaurants, you'd better get in line. And according to the New York Times, that's just what some of the top restaurant groups in the U.S. are doing as put Dallas at the top of the list for their expansion plans.
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The Last Word: Tactical Fleet’s Chris Barta on How He Got Into the Supercar Sales Business
by | May 22, 2023
Tucked away among blocks of warehouses in Farmers Branch, an address without a sign offers no clues of the treasures within, which would make any supercar fan salivate—if they don't pass out from sheer overwhelmption. It's the 75,000-SF HQ home of Tactical Fleet, America's largest pre-owned supercar dealership, where hundreds of Lambos and stacked-to-the-ceiling Porsches and Ferraris glitter with the promise of speed.
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The Last Word: Frank Zaccanelli on Renaming NexPoint’s Plano Life Sciences Project the ‘Texas Research Quarter’
by | May 19, 2023
In February, Dallas-based multibillion-dollar alternative investment firm NexPoint revealed plans and renderings for a proposed 200-acre life sciences development in Plano that could eventually create over 4 million square feet of lab, office, and therapeutic production space. At the time, the working title for the development was the TxS District, short for Technology x Science. But today NexPoint announced that the project has been renamed as something bigger and bolder: the "Texas Research Quarter," or TRQ.
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The Last Word: FC Dallas President Dan Hunt on the World Cup Coming Back to Dallas
The next World Cup is still three years away, but soccer fans in North Texas were already buzzing like crazy today. That roar you might have heard at the AT&T Discovery Center in downtown Dallas or the The Star’s Tostitos Plaza in Frisco coincided with the official unveiling of the FIFA World Cup 2026 Dallas logo and branding.
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The Last Word: Meow Wolf Has a Date With Destiny in Grapevine on July 14

by | May 16, 2023
Meow Wolf says its Grapevine exhibition is "a journey through a technicolor wonderland that blends storytelling, technology, and immersive art." Different dimensions of perspective and creativity will be on display through more than 30 rooms of "multidimensional art and compelling narrative."
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The Last Word: Dr. Ken Rothfield on His Double Life as a Bass Player and an Anesthesiologist
by | May 15, 2023
When Dr. Rothfield isn't knocking out patients, he's knocking out audiences—like he did Friday at Texas Health Arlington Memorial Hospital, when he and his band Rhythm Company performed in honor of National Hospital Week.
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The Last Word: Tekwings’ Sagar Pidathala on the Value of ‘Horizontal Thinking’
by | May 12, 2023
Bio 9 Ventures, a Plano-based boutique healthcare ecosystem consulting firm, has merged its international healthcare IT division with three companies to form a new business called Kanectify. The new entity will add end-to-end integrated benefits to platform engineering, AI healthcare, and a portfolio of digital health R&D solutions.
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The Last Word: Schwab’s Jonathan Craig on the 2023 Charles Schwab Challenge Champion’s Prize
by | May 11, 2023
A certain percentage of Dallas Innovates readers must be salivating at the sight of the 1973 Ford Bronco above. If you'd like to own it, no problem—you just have to win the 2023 Charles Schwab Challenge, a PGA Tour event set for Memorial Day Weekend at the Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth.
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The Last Word: Offices.net’s Teresha Aird on How Using ChatGPT Is Like Making a ‘Dream Hire’

Teresha Aird has used ChatGPT for her work with Dallas-based Offices.net, and she's a believer.
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The Last Word: JPMorgan’s Michelle Thomas on Working to Overcome Disparities in Opportunity
by | May 8, 2023
Thomas sat down with Dallas Weekly's Jess Washington to talk about a range of issues her company is working on in an effort to overcome disparities in opportunity. They include skills training efforts to help people advance in the labor market; bridging the "wealth divide" by providing access to capital and tech assistance to underserved entrepreneurs; supporting efforts to revitalize underinvested communities that are facing gentrification; and more.
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The Last Word: Quadrant’s Chad Cook on His Plans for the Dallas Design District
by | May 5, 2023
Quadrant Investment Properties has broken ground on two office buildings in the Dallas Design District, according to the Dallas Morning News' Steve Brown—a five-story building on Riveredge Drive and the 10-story Thirteen Thirty Three on Oak Lawn near Riverfront Boulevard. QIP's Chad Cook says he doesn't want the district "to become another Uptown."
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The Last Word: Julie Robinson on the Team Behind Beyond the Bar in Richardson
Julie and Reid Robinson, former owners of the bars Brizo and The Forum in Richardson, are opening something new in the same city: Beyond the Bar, which they call the first alcohol-free "bottle shop" in the Dallas area. 
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The Last Word: Dallas AI’s Aamer Charania On ‘ChatGPT in Medicine’

by | May 2, 2023
On Wednesday at 6 p.m., Charania will host a "ChatGPT in Medicine" online meetup sponsored by Dallas AI, the largest nonprofit AI forum in North Texas. His guest: Harvey Castro, MD, author of "ChatGPT and Healthcare: The Key to the New Future of Medicine."
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The Last Word: Nada’s John Green on Making the $27T Home Equity Market More Accessible
Green is the former leader singer of a punk rock band, who toured the world and put out two albums in his early twenties. But now he's taking the stage in a different way—by leading his startup Nada into the $27 trillion home equity market.
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The Last Word: The DMA’s Agustín Arteaga on the Six Finalists of the Museum’s International Design Competition
by | Apr 28, 2023
In February, the Dallas Museum of Art launched a “Reimagining the Dallas Museum of Art International Design Competition" for a major expansion that will add flexible gallery spaces, reorganized entrances and circulation, and a reapportioned interior.  The museum received 154 design submissions from all over the world. On Thursday, the DMA announced that it has selected six finalists.
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The Last Word: Sinclair Digital’s Farukh Aslam on Snagging an Economic Development Agreement with Fort Worth
by | Apr 27, 2023
On Tuesday, the Fort Worth City Council approved an economic development agreement with Sinclair Digital, the smart buildings tech startup that brought The Sinclair—a Marriott Autograph Collection hotel called "the world's first all-digital hotel"—to downtown Fort Worth. Under the agreement, Sinclair Digital will launch a new corporate R&D and tech center in downtown Fort Worth. According to the Star-Telegram, city tax incentives will enable the hiring of 30 to 40 new employees over the next few months, with programmers included in the new positions.
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