Hines CEO on namesake founder's legacy: 'My father and his team really perfected the art of working with the architect'

Glance at each of Houston’s three skylines, and it’s likely locals and visitors wonder who’s responsible for their numerous towering office buildings. 

Per a report from Houston FOX affiliate KRIV, the Hines Global Real Estate Firm, which marks 66 years in business this year, played a huge role. 

The firm was founded in 1957 by real estate magnate Gerald D. Hines, with its first project being the widely popular Galleria in the city’s Uptown district.

Under Hines’ leadership, his namesake firm had a hand in the beginnings of many of Houston’s most well-known structures, KRIV reported. 

His lengthy work in helping with the city’s rapid growth was so impactful that the University of Houston (UH) named its architecture school after him. 

According to KRIV, Hines died at the age of 95 in 2020, but Jeff Hines, his son, is continuing his father’s legacy.

The younger Hines, the station reported, wasn’t initially keen on going into the family business as dear old dad had hoped, but as he made his way through college, he decided to make a leap of faith. 

“It just seemed to me that being part of a firm that creates projects that are tangible and that are clearly beneficial to their local communities is something that I could get excited about,” Jeff Hines told KRIV. 

He added in the report that art factors immensely into the company’s work with architects. 

“My father and his team really perfected the art of working with the architect, taking their great designs and then working collaboratively with the architect to maybe tweak the design a little bit to where you can reduce the price of the curtain wall, but still achieve the same sort of architectural effects that the architect wanted to achieve,” Jeff Hines said, according to the station.

Per KRIV, Jeff Hines leads the firm with his daughter and his two other children are in the business as well. 

“It's just such a delight to be working with them in the business and just continuing the culture that dad created and seeing my kids brought into that exact same culture, and, I think it'll lead the firm in the same positive direction that it's been led since dad started,” he said. 

As of June 2022, Hines has over $90 billion worth of investment assets and a footprint in 314 countries in 28 countries, the company’s website says.