The Charlotte, NC-based Keith Cos., setting up a partnership called TKC Ltd., leased the holding at 1302 Avenue T in Grand Prairie about six months ago because Duke didn't want to sell, John Aldrich, president of Colliers International's Dallas office, tells GlobeSt.com. Duke relented when the would-be buyer met the price for its client, IBA, a medical equipment sterilization company. The firm also occupies industrial space at 3125 Wichita Court in Fort Worth.

C. Norman Walters II, TKC's director of business park development, says it's a first-time buy in the region and one that was closed to accommodate the needs of a 10-year client., its only one in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. That client, which has the keys, is retrofitting the 20-year-old building for its state-of-the-art sterilization processes. "They are spending a considerable amount of money," Walters says, noting that it's at the tenant's expense.

IBA inked a long-term lease with TKC for the building, which shares 6.6 acres with a fully leased 50,000-sf industrial building still owned by Duke. Aldrich, who brokered the transaction, says it was "a function of the price" that got Duke to go against its norm and one-off a building in a shared development.

IBA, with a US base in Chicago, has its global headquarters in Louvain-la-Nueve, Belgium, part of a 49-city, 12-country portfolio. In the US, IBA has lab service centers in Itasca, IL; Ontario, CA; and Santa Teresa, NM and sterilization processing facilities throughout California, Illinois, Ohio, Texas, North Carolina, New Jersey, Maryland, Arkansas, Georgia, New Mexico, New York and Utah.