Hillwood to Spend $20M on Scotiabank’s Dallas Office

One of Canada’s biggest banks is migrating south, and Hillwood is richly feathering its nest.

Ross Perot Jr.’s Dallas-based development company budgeted $20 million to renovate about 100,000 square feet of Victory Commons One for Scotiabank’s new regional hub, according to a filing with the state. The estimated total cost amounts to $150 per square foot. The space covers three floors of the 15-story Uptown Dallas building at 2601 Victory Avenue, and Scotiabank plans to fill it with more than 1,000 workers, according to a Hillwood press release. Renovations will start in April and should end by January 2027, according to the filing.

Scotiabank, the third-largest bank in Canada, keeps its main U.S. office in New York. The bank considered both Dallas and Charlotte, North Carolina, for a southern expansion last year, and Dallas won — with the help of a $5 million incentives package that included property tax abatements and economic development grants. Scotiabank U.S. co-CEO Brian Lehman said in a Hillwood release that the incentives were appreciated, but not persuasive.

Former President George W. Bush helped tempt Scotiabank to Dallas, according to Hillwood. The bank held a ribbon cutting ceremony at Victory Commons One last week to commemorate the official opening of the Dallas branch.

Hillwood developed Victory Commons One in 2022. Other tenants include Lockton Companies, Steelcase and Alcority. Dallas County appraised the building’s taxable value at $151 million in 2025.

Uptown Dallas, a neighborhood and public improvement district just north of Downtown Dallas, has been siphoning tenants like Goldman Sachs and Bank of America away from the traditional urban core with newer, amenity-rich offices.

Average office rents are higher in the Uptown and Turtle Creek submarket than in any other area in Dallas/Fort Worth, according to Partners Real Estate. In the last quarter of 2025, Uptown/Turtle Creek was the only submarket where the gross average asking rent for office space exceeded $50 per square foot. The overall average for Dallas/Fort Worth was $31 per square foot.

The Uptown area also accounted for more than half of the Metroplex’s ongoing office construction in the last quarter. Of the 2.8 million square feet of office space under construction across Dallas/Fort Worth, about 2 million square feet was in Uptown/Turtle Creek.