"This was a very nice opportunity for us that we couldn't pass up," Jeff Turner, Duke's senior vice president in Dallas, tells GlobeSt.com. The sweet spot in the deal is that the land gives the Indianapolis-based Duke some development possibilities in a submarket where it has just one vacancy in 500,000 sf of industrial space in three projects.

Turner says his team is just starting to work on a couple proposals for the Kingsley Road acreage, just north of the LBJ Freeway. Whether it's build-to-suit or spec, a building will be rising at the end of this year or early 2004, of that Turner is pretty confident. He says build-to-suit lookers and pre-leasing prospects started knocking on the door as word got out that the deal was closing. "I'm really encouraged that we're not going to have to sit on this land for a long period of time," he says.

Seller Cypressbrook I, a Houston investment group, bought the land just 15 months ago in a redevelopment play that brought down a dilapidated meat-packing plant to create value and then opened the door for the resale, says Gary V. Lindsey, who along with his Grubb & Ellis Co. Dallas partner, Robert O. Fulford II, brokered the all-cash transaction.

Turner says the acreage is ideally suited for Duke's 520,000-sf "quad" design, which has offices on the building's corners and ample cross-dock capabilities. Duke's latest development ticket has all the right elements for success: rail service, nearby freeway access, Triple Freeport exemption and an in-hand tax abatement package from Garland officials. Turner won't say what has been bundled as an enticement, but did say there are "nice economic incentives to whatever user comes along."

With land at a premium in the Garland submarket, the going rate is $2.50 per sf. Turner's not talking about the selling price, except to say "it was a fair price" for everyone. The deal went from "a handshake" to the close in just 45 days, a good indication that there was little dickering over the cost. "It's always nice to get in the middle of a transaction with brokers like Lindsey, Fulford and Glenn Watson (of Watson Commercial in Dallas)," Turner says of the swift score for the prime piece of land on the south side of Kingsley and east of Jupiter Road.