The whole thing smacks of Panattoni's plunge into Texas two years ago with Ross Perot Jr.'s Hillwood operation. The Panattoni Hillwood joint venture recently disbanded after a two-year development record that pumped more than 4.8 million sf of industrial space into the Dallas-Ft. Worth market, according to a story on GlobeSt's Dallas Web site in November.

This most recent Portland-area deal is for all but 15 acres of the land Art Spada owns between the western portion of Catellus' Southshore Corporate Park and 185th Avenue, the borderline between Portland and Gresham, across which lies the rest of Southshore. Don Ossey of Ossey Patterson Co., who is representing Spada, tells GlobeSt the remaining acreage is yet to be tied up.

Mike Wells, Panattoni's local point man, hopes to close on his company's purchase within four months, which GlobeSt presumes is the length of time Wells believes is will take to finalize the build-to-suit deal and obtain the requisite city approvals for its construction.

Three weeks ago, Panattoni tied up a 7.56-acre parcel in Tigard, across Highway 99 from Costco at 11765 Pacific Highway S., and is currently in the process of doing its due diligence for a 150,000-sf development. "We're just getting started," Wells said last week. "I think it's an excellent site for office space."

This purchase, too, of course, is contingent upon site plan approval and a building permit, but Wells anticipates starting construction in June or July if everything goes smoothly, and completing the project sometime next spring. The property, which one local broker described as "an absolute 100% location," currently holds a vacant training center once used by General Motors. The property owner, Stephen Barasch, acquired the site in 1994 for $224,000, according to Oregon Title Insurance Co. As he wouldn't for the Spada site, Wells isn't saying how much they are considering paying for the Tigard site, but Oregon Title records have the land alone valued at $2.67 million. The structure, which would be demolished, is valued at close to $1.4 million.

Panattoni hired Wells away from Cushman & Wakefield last January to handle purchase and development of 136-acres sold by Fujitsu in Hillsboro, now called Cornelius Pass Corporate Center. Wells nabbed the property for $28 million and then immediately flipped 33 acres that contained the only two buildings on the property for $24.8 million, leaving Panattoni 103 acres for the relative pittance of $4 million after costs.

By the end of February, Panattoni will have nearly 380,000-sf completed or in the works on 28 acres -- two-thirds of which has already been leased or sold -- leaving it 75 acres to play with over the next couple of years. Already signed tenants include Sumitomo Electric Semiconductor Materials Inc. (103,000 sf), Relera (a 78,000 sf), RCN Telecom (45,000 sf) and Arrow Electronics (about 30,000 sf). "Most of these deals we struck in the summer and fall, so it will be interesting to see what happens in the first half of the year," says Wells, who feels things slowing down a bit, but doesn't see the bottom falling out.