The Des Moines, IA-based investment group, owner of 60% of Turnpike's office/warehouse and bulk distribution product, has advanced 50% of Dallas County's share for a $2.4-million project with the city to extend Cockrell Hill Road and is offering to put up 100% of its tab for a $1.5-million reconstruction of a three-block stretch of La Reunion Parkway, John Gorman with Dallas-based Holt Cos. tells GlobeSt.com. He says the advance cash accelerated the project by two years. When construction's done, Turnpike will have direct access to Interstate 30 from Cockrell Hill and an extra $10 million of infrastructure, including new water and sewer lines, via the La Reunion work, says Gorman, Principal's broker for its three million sf in the park.

The Cockrell Hill plan gained local government approval awhile back, passing without a hitch and virtually unnoticed except by those proponents who understood the far-reaching implication of the combined 2,325 feet of road work. The La Reunion Parkway proposal could have done the same, save for an uptick in leasing that placed three tenants in about 250,400 sf in Turnpike buildings owned by Principal and locally based Billingsley Co.

City council and the Dallas Area Rapid Transit board have yet to vote on the La Reunion reconstruction. Council will vote Wednesday; DART's vote is June 8.

The Cockrell Hill extension is not readily visible because it's embedded in an extensive makeover of Interstate 30 and being done by the same contractor. "You can't tell that it's happening yet, but that's going to change soon," Irv Griffin, Dallas County's senior project manager, tells GlobeSt.com. "To road builders, the project is very small, but to the people who have those warehouses, the project is very significant." The work will be completed by Thanksgiving. The public-private road project could be a first for the county, he says, adding he knows it's his first in 18 years with the department.

Gorman says Principal stepped up with the offer when Dallas County OK'd the interchange plan, but couldn't come up with funding until 2006. The city's share was incorporated into a May 2003 bond program.

Gorman says he started pushing the road plan after too many years of watching his competitor across the freeway cherry-pick Turnpike's tenants with sweetheart deals for new product. Now, he says he's getting "an equal playing field with Pinnacle Park." By leveling the field, Gorman, with Principal's properties at 90% occupancy, signed FAMSA, a Mexico-based furniture distributor, to 80,826 sf at 3950 Bastille Rd., the first backfill for a 282,000-sf vacancy created by a tenant's exit last year to Pinnacle Park. Represented by Michael Pinada of Dallas-based Lincoln Property Co., the firm moved in with a seven-year lease for a piece of Turnpike 28.

Shortly thereafter, Blockbuster Entertainment Group tapped 55,618 sf in Turnpike 1 at 3510 La Reunion Parkway in a deal between Grubb & Ellis Co.'s Gary Lindsey, Robert Fulford and Sam Hocker and building owner, the Billingsley Co.

And the latest deal to be made is a 114,000-sf, three-year lease for Crestmark, a startup window manufacturing company that's taking down space in Turnpike 5 at 3702-3706 La Reunion Parkway. The tightly sealed deal was crafted by Chris Teesdale with locally based Swearingen Co. and Billingsley's Calvin Hull, who's marketing close to 300,000 sf in the park.

Brokers say the back-to-back leases were directly tied to the chance to get discounted rates by competitive building owners before the vintage product near the downtown gets its new toehold on the interstate. Right now, the bulk warehouse space's quoted rates range from $2.60 per sf to and $3 per sf triple net, but that too could change.