350,000-SF Redesign Carves New Medical Office Building

The 146,784-sf lease took 15 months to negotiate and has been kept under wraps for several months even though it's the largest deal to close in four years in the Stemmons Corridor, Tony Click, principal of Dallas-based Trammell Crow Co., tells GlobeSt.com. Children's Medical Center has been open about its expansion plans, but the Menswear Mart lease was not common knowledge until two days ago. The properties abut and will be linked by a $17.8-million, 2,500-space parking garage that is well under way.

The lease will bring a transitional move, starting in June and ending in December, of all administrative offices, including the president's, and a state-of-the-art day surgery. The 10 1/2-year lease is for the first three floors of the six-story building, owned by Crow Holdings Co. of Dallas.

The 18-year-old Menswear Mart at 2350 Stemmons was the last building erected in the three-million sf or more Dallas Market Center. The hospital lease takes the structure to 45% occupancy, with the only other tenant being Western Wear on the fifth floor.

Dallas' McCarthy Building Cos. has been handling the Children's Medical Center work and also is in charge of the Menswear Mart make-over. Staffelbach Designs of Dallas is redesigning the showroom space for office use.

Trammell Crow was hired to brainstorm the building's redevelopment. Tenants were relocated into the abutting Apparel Mart to allow for the conversion as planners toyed with high-tech office space due to its positioning to the Infomart and fiber optic lines. As the industry cratered so did the plan. Eyes then turned to Children's Medical Center, which was in the market with a two-pronged need: find newer office space than it had at Exchange Park and free up space in the 322-bed main facility. "It just made sense," Click says.

With the building's new focus now firmly rooted, the Trammell Crow team has been out courting other medical-related tenants up and down hospital row. Click estimates the building owner has sunk about $1 million into the conversion, which meant adding windows and lots of them. He won't venture a guess as to how much Children's Medical Center is putting into the building. But, given the project's scope, it's sure to be substantial.

The Trammell Crow team of Steve Zimmerman, senior vice president, and Galen Johnson, vice president, brokered the deal for Children's Medical Center. Click and Gardner Peavy, a Trammell Crow vice president, represented the building owner at the bargaining table.