DALLAS-Tricon Capital Group Inc. has placed a financial stake with developers on two different commercial real estate development projects in Texas. Locally, the Canadian investment company is contributing $11.2 million in the acquisition of 60 acres located just south of the CBD; while in Houston, Tricon has made a $150 million investment commitment to spur further development on the 3,200-acre master-planned Cross Creek Ranch.

A spokesman with Tricon tells GlobeSt.com that the Dallas-based project, on which it is partnering with Matthews Southwest Development on the land buy, fits with Tricon’s strategy of boosting urban development in Canada and the United States. “For us to acquire 60 acres within one mile of the convention center is a unique opportunity,” he adds. The eventual plan is to build a mix of residential, commercial and retail real estate projects in a transit-oriented and pedestrian-friendly urban environment. The $400 million project is as yet unnamed and there is no set groundbreaking and the spokesman says the project is on the drawing board.

That parcel, in fact, has some history in local commercial real estate community. Once the site of Alford Refrigerated Warehouse Co. on Cadiz and Corinth Streets, the land had been acquired by developer JPI of Irving, TX, on which a $850 million apartment and retail complex had been planned. Then the financial collapse came and “they ended up giving the keys back to the lender,” the Tricon spokesman says. The lender, in this case, was Bank of the Ozarks, which sold the land to Tricon and Matthews Southwest.

The Houston project, Cross Creek Ranch, opened in 2008 and has, to date, approximately 700 single-family residential homes. The spokesman says that, during the next 10 years, the plan is to develop land for approximately 5,000 more homes, as well as approximately 200 acres dedicated to commercial real estate product. 

The spokesman says it’s uncertain at this time what specific developments Tricon and project partner and developer Johnson Development Corp. would undertake on the CRE side. “We’re buying the property on an all-cash basis to control our destiny,” he acknowledges. “This could be a potential build-out ourselves and sell it in the future, we could sell them as pads, or do horizontal development and joint venture with someone to go vertical.” Commercial real estate development is a ways away, he continues, but with the extension of the West Park Tollway, “that will most likely go past the front door of the project, and we’d like to capitalize on that with retail plans.”

The spokesman says that Tricon hasn’t invested in Texas for at least 15 years, but demographics and job growth in the Lone Star State are appealing.  Still, Tricon is a conservative investor. “If someone were to send us a deal, it’s rare we’d do it just like that,” the spokesman explains. “We pick markets we want to be in, then start meeting with the local developers, bankers and others.”

Even after that, Tricon wants to develop a solid relationship with its partners before signing on the dotted line to commit to a deal. “We’d been meeting with Matthews for more than five years before we decided to do this deal with them,” the spokesman comments.