The expansion, Arlington Highlands East, will build out thedevelopment partnership's 80-acre tract. Arlington Highlands sitson land owned for decades by the Mathes family, which includesRetail Connection senior vice president John Curtis Mathes, thepoint man for the project's leasing campaign. The developmentpartnership also includes Dallas-based Retail Connection and itsin-house development arm, Connected Development Services.

Developers like to promote the demand that a project generates.In Arlington Highlands' case, the build-out phase broke groundyesterday at 80% tenancy for existing and new space and deals inthe works for the last 25,000 sf of the expansion phase. Anddespite Arlington's hefty retail market and the project's proximityto the 1.5-million-sf, 180-store Parks at Arlington, at least 80%of Arlington Highlands' retailers are new to the market, accordingto Mathes.

Daniel Fuller, vice president of development for ConnectedDevelopment Services, tells GlobeSt.com that dirt work will take 60days to complete, pushing the project into paving and lightingstages to allow vertical work to begin midway through the firstquarter. "We're going to be working as fast as we can to get it upas quickly as we can," he says. "We're expecting to deliver shellbuildings in late spring or early summer."