The Dallas-Ft. Worth's sixth Tweeters will go up on 3.2 acres at 18633 LBJ Freeway in Mesquite. THEG USA LP is the buyer of record and will be developing a strip center for an 8,500-sf Tweeters and 13,500 sf of retail space that will be available for leasing, the architect and broker on the land buy tell GlobeSt.com.

Lawrence Attaway and Tim Hughes, both of United Commercial Realty/ChainLinks represented Tweeters, which will be leasing the site from THEG USA, a newly established development entity set up to handle the Texas rollout. Charlie Anderson of Fulton Anderson Realty Advisors Inc. handled negotiations for seller 1635 Town Center Land Partners Ltd.

"Texas is a big state with lots of room for expansion," Roy Bertalotto, Tweeter's vice president of new store development, tells GlobeSt.com. "We know that our business model works there and we feel the timing is right to build." In 1999, Tweeters acquired Home Entertainment, which has a major presence in Dallas and Houston, in a buy that is jumpstarting the Texas rollout.

According to a Tweeters contact, Houston and the DFW region each will get four more stores. The chain currently operates 11 stores statewide. Arlington gets its Tweeters in fall 2002 and Southlake in late fall or early winter 2002. There is no target date for the opening of a Hulen store, a Ft. Worth suburb, but Mesquite will come on line in summer 2002. The Texas plan, says the Canton, MA-based contact, also calls for the relocation of Tweeters at 2595 Preston Rd. in Plano to 3400 Preston Rd. in Frisco. "It's going to be busy next year," says the Tweeters source.

In all, the home entertainment store will open nearly 20 stores nationwide in the next year. Four are slated for the Washington, DC area, five in Tennessee and two in South Carolina, all new markets for the retailer. Tweeter currently has 114 retail locations plus six service centers and eight distribution centers in its home state, Pennsylvania, Georgia, California, Illinois, Florida, Arizona and of course, Texas.

Earlier this year, the 29-year-old retailer, which employs 3,500, acquired Big Screen City in San Diego and Audio Video Systems in Charlotte, NC in an ongoing takeover of smaller chains to build the portfolio. Just this month, Tweeters bought out Sound Advice, a 33-store chain based in Florida and Arizona.

Michael Twichell of Dallas-based Twichell Associates is designing the Mesquite retail center, which breaks ground in October. A general contractor has yet to be picked for the single-story project. It's possible that the Mesquite retail center will feature the popular Texas Hill Country stone exterior, but plans are just reaching the fine-tuning stage.

In another UCR deal in the DFW region, Whataburger Inc. has bought about 2.2 acres at the intersection of Interstate 20 and Ranch House Road near the Ft. Worth suburb of Willow Park. Darrell Hernandez and W. Thurston Witt Jr., both of UCR, negotiated the deal for the buyer, with John H. Maddux of John H. Maddux Inc. acting for the seller.

Also, Swift Rent A Car has bought a 2,700-sf building situated on a 37,000-sf lot at 12095 Garland Rd. in Dallas in a deal structured by Witt. Meanwhile, UCR's Jeff Brand and Ross Golman have negotiated a 5,163-sf lease for MLM Fitness, Lady of America at Pitman Corners Shopping Center in Plano.