Developers are getting closer to starting work on North Texas' next major mixed-use development.

Verizon and KDC's $1 billion Hidden Ridge development in Las Colinas will include corporate offices, retail, apartments and hotel rooms on a more than 100-acre site west of State Highway 114.

The huge project - which has been in the works for more than a year - is getting closer to a start, Verizon's global real estate director Jim Tousignant confirms.

"We're creating a very special environment with this project," Tousignant said this week panel discussion organized by the Dallas Architecture Forum.

The Irving mixed-use development is being built on land that Verizon has owned for some time across the street from its long-time corporate campus on Hidden Ridge Drive.

A new DART commuter rail station will connect the mixed-use project with Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and downtown Dallas.

The anchor business tenant for the Hidden Ridge project will be Pioneer Natural Resources - an energy firm already based in Irving.