ARLINGTON, TX-Following a lengthy process, wholesale furniture company Classic Design sold the 86,800-square-foot warehouse it owned since 2007 to another furniture company, VSCL Corporation, dba Canales Furniture USA. While Canales is using the more than 30-year-old building to expand its business and open a distribution center, Classic Design ended up leasing 18,500 square feet right down the street.

According to Henry S. Miller Brokerage associate John Bielamowizc, Classic Design originally acquired the building at 2200 E. Randol Mills Rd. during the rollicking economy of the mid-2000s. With housing starts off the charts, Bielamowizc comments, Classic Design assumed it would expand. But in what has become a familiar story, the housing market crashed and furniture companies also began going out of business.

"Classic never went out of business, but they did make moves to downsize," says Bielamowizc, who represented the seller in the transaction, and who found Classic Design new space to lease at 3315 E. Randol Mill Rd., just a few minutes east of its former location. While marketing the asset, Bielamowizc also found a tenant for the larger space, defense contractor L-3 Communications Corp., which took approximately 40,000 square feet of the building through a long-term lease.  

Bielamowizc tells GlobeSt.com that in marketing the property, he talked to Classic Design's neighbors about it, and the asset came to the attention of nearby Canales Furniture, which needed more space. "They were in a smaller space and said they were bursting at the seams," Bielamowizc explains. "It was under contact for seven days before it closed. They were very motivated, they needed it and we did everything we could to speed the process."

This is not to suggest, however, that things moved all that quickly. The entire process took close to two years. Bielamowizc says the building itself sparked a lot of interest, mostly from investors. The asset was put under contract numerous times, but getting it to the table to close was proving to be difficult. Furthermore, "there's a huge difference between investors and users," Bielamowizc says, "The investor wouldn't necessarily be on-site, but the user would be, meaning that upkeep would be better."  

In making the moving parts of this deal fit together, Bielamowizc says Classic Design looked at a lot of different options, from leasing part of the building (which is what happened with the lease to L-3 Communications) to selling it (again, which is what happened when Canales Furniture came along).  Through it all, Bielamowizc said the deal would be contingent on Classic Design moving out within a 30-day period, meaning other potential space needed to be available for quick turnaround as well.

"This is a furniture company selling to another furniture company, then getting a lease down the street," Bielamowizc says. "The interesting thing about it is that L-3 Communications lease; that site might be a defense contractor company and furniture company for awhile longer."