"It wasn't really on the market," Sam G. Kartalis, president andCOO of Dallas-based Henry S. Miller Commercial, tells GlobeSt.comabout Crystal Creek I at 4637 Hedgecoxe Rd. Start to finish,though, the deal took nearly six months to bed down because thepermanent loan with Chicago-based LaSalle Bank was reassigned fromthe private investor in Miami to TPH Capital, according toKartalis, who co-brokered the deal with Greg S. Trout, Henry S.Miller's president of the office and industrial division.Christiane Jones of Re/Max Performance Group of Prosper, TXrepresented the buyer, whose 1031 exchange details weren't readilyavailable.

Kartalis says the seller backed the center's development twoyears ago to "test the retail market" in the northern suburbs andsecure a cash-flowing property. "That really was the only piece Ifelt, at the time, that lent itself to a strip center," he adds.The nine-tenant roster includes a gift shop, dry cleaners, dentistand pizza shop. TPH Capital will lease and manage the asset, whichwas tagged at $3.6 million for its a low-key marketing run.

Crystal Creek I sits on 1.44 acres at the junction of HedgecoxeRoad and Ohio Drive, a built-out corner with multifamily andsingle-family development on two corners and a church on the third."In a town where every corner is retail, it's nice to find anintersection where only one corner is commercial retail," Kartalissays. "In a sense in that neighborhood, the center has nocompetition."