GARLAND, TX-First Industrial Realty Trust Inc. is ready to dig into a 20.2-acre site that's been banked for five years. The dirt work will kick off with several prospects, including one for 300,000 sf, already milling about the 435,179-sf spec plan.

Site work gets under way next week for the $17-million Garland Business Park phase two, the last piece of the Chicago-based developer's infill site at 3900 W. Miller Rd. "It has been on the drawing board for five years," Terry Darrow, senior development officer for First Industrial, tells GlobeSt.com. "It's time now to move forward and kick it off." Delivery is penciled for Feb. 1, 2008.

The site neighbors a 446,000-sf distribution complex, leased to locally based Shippers Warehouse Inc., which First Industrial built five years ago and subsequently sold to Fort Worth-based Hillwood. Like the first building, the second one will have 30-foot clear heights, but has been outfitted with 33 trailer spaces and 52 cross-dock doors.

Darrow says the distribution center design by Hardy McCullah/MLM Architects Inc. of Dallas is flexible enough to swing the use to light manufacturing or food processing and divisible to 100,000-sf blocks. As a result, clearance has been given to bump the tenant-improvement allowance to $4 per sf versus the typical $2.50 per sf to $3 per sf for other new product in the submarket. Dave Anderson, executive vice president with CB Richard Ellis in Dallas, is courting tenants with a $3.25 per sf, triple net quote for the space.

Darrow, acknowledging industrial spec is rising all over town, says the Garland project stands out with its infill location, Miller Road frontage and easy access to Interstate 635 and North Central Expressway. "There's not a lot of other product out there," he says about the industrial pocket.

Bob Moore Construction Inc. of Arlington is the general contractor. Pacheco Koch Consulting Engineers Inc. of Dallas was the civil engineer.