Plano, TX

Like many of the cities in the area Plano owes its early success to the completion of the Houston and Central Texas Railway.  It started out as a farming community but in the 1970 a series of public works projects and a change in taxes that removed the farming community from the town helped to increase the overall population.  By 1980 it had grown to 72,000.

During the 1980s, many large corporations moved their headquarters to the city, including J. C. Penney and Frito-Lay, which encouraged further growth. By 1990, the population reached 128,713, dwarfing the county seat of McKinney. By 2000, the population grew to 222,030, making it one of the largest suburbs of Dallas.

Other major employers in Plano, TX:

  1. Bank of America Home Loans
  2. HP Enterprise Services
  3. Capital One
  4. JCPenney
  5. Ericsson
  6. Alcatel-Lucent
  7. Frito-Lay
  8. NTT Data
  9. Medical Center of Plano
  10. Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Plano
  11. Acision
  12. Adams Golf
  13. Alliance Data
  14. CA Technologies
  15. Cookies by Design
  16. Dr Pepper Snapple Group
  17. Cinemark Theatres
  18. Crossmark
  19. Expert Global Solutions
  20. FedEx Office
  21. Frito-Lay
  22. Gearbox Software
  23. GENBAND
  24. Hilti North America
  25. Infosys Technologies
  26. JCPenney
  27. Liberty Mutual Insurance
  28. Pizza Hut
  29. Rent-A-Center
  30. Robot Entertainment[29]
  31. TEK
  32. Safety-Kleen
  33. Siemens PLM Software
  34. Tektronix Communications[30]
  35. Toyota Motor North America
  36. Traxxas
  37. Tyler Technologies[31]
  38. Yum! Restaurants International

In 2015, Liberty Mutual also announced their plans to build a new corporate campus just a few blocks east of Toyota, bringing an estimated 5,000 jobs to the community.  In January 2016 JP Morgan Chase and mortgage giant Fannie Mae announced they would be moving regional operations to Plano, bringing a combined 7,000 new jobs to the community.  Plano is surrounded by other municipalities and therefore cannot expand in area, and there is little undeveloped land remaining within the city limits.

In 2013, Plano received top-scoring nationally in a livability index according to an algorithm created by AreaVibes.com, a Toronto-based company specializing in such data.

The Plano Independent School District serves most of the city. Student enrollment has increased dramatically over the past few decades. Plano has a unique high school system, in which grades 9-10 attend a high school and grades 11-12 attend a senior high. There are three senior high schools (grades 11-12) in PISD; Plano East, Plano, and Plano West. In Newsweek’s 2012 list of best national high schools, Plano West was ranked as 63rd, Plano Senior as 108th, and Plano East as 243rd. Small portions of Plano are served by the Lewisville Independent School District, Frisco Independent School District, and Allen Independent School District.  It is important to identify which school district a property is located in when looking to purchase a home.

In the 2013-14 school year, Plano ISD has opened two 4-year high school Academies, one focusing on STEAM (STEM education plus Media Arts) and the other on health science. Additionally, the district has modified its existing International Baccalaureate program to allow freshman and sophomores in the program to be housed at Plano East Senior High School.

In addition to Catholic primary and middle schools, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Dallas operates John Paul II High School in Plano. Non-Catholic private schools in Plano include Great Lakes Academy, Spring Creek Academy, Yorktown Education, and Prestonwood Christian Academy. In addition, the Collin County campus of Coram Deo Academy is located in the One Church (previously Four Corners Church) facility in Plano.

Plano is the home to two campuses of Collin College, one at the Courtyard Center on Preston Park Boulevard and the larger Spring Creek Campus on Spring Creek Parkway at Jupiter.  SMU-in-Plano, formerly SMU-in-Legacy, a branch of Southern Methodist University, is a graduate university serving the needs of 3,000 working professionals.  Its academic programs include business, engineering and computer training, education and continuing education. It also features The Guildhall at SMU, which offers a masters program in video game development.  DBU North, a satellite campus of Dallas Baptist University, is located in West Plano, and offers undergraduate and graduate courses, as well as houses admissions and academic counseling offices.