Darrell Hurmis, executive vice president of investments and land for Dallas-based Henry S. Miller Commercial, tells GlobeSt.com that the region's new buyer wants to place the $100 million within a year. "Our goal is to click off one a month," he says. "If the right portfolio comes along, they might take a look at that too." The buyers are focused on retail, but office and industrial will whet their appetite as well, he adds. The buying range is $3 million to $20 million.

Hurmis and associates Jake Jordan and Jim Leatherwood have been scouting the region for six months on the investment group's behalf. A few more offers are sitting on sellers' tables in the metroplex, according to Hurmis, who says he'd like to step up the property size with the next acquisition.

Three months ago, the buyers broke into the market with the purchase of an 18,000-sf, value-add center with an 86% occupancy along Midway Road in North Dallas. In contrast, Wheatland Marketplace delivered in November 2004 with national and local tenants now filling 91% of the class A-minus space at the intersection of West Wheatland Road and Interstate 20 in Duncanville.

The 4.3-acre Wheatland Marketplace was developed by a partnership led by Henry S. Miller Commercial, which had its retail president, Vaughn Miller, negotiating for the buyer of record, Wheatland Marketplace Associates LLC. Miller says the shopping center was under contract two times before Hurmis' buyer placed an offer. "The other buyers didn't have the financial strength to get it done," Miller says about a deal that closed with a conduit loan from Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. of New York City. Wheatland, like the Midway Road purchase, will be leased and managed by a Henry S. Miller Commercial affiliate.