10-Year Wait Ends in 20-Year Retail Lockdown

The 20-year lockdown was packaged by David Levinson and Mitch Traub, both with Dallas-based Weitzman Group, on the building owner's side of the table with Lem Miller of Sandia Properties, also from the Dallas area, negotiating for the dental clinic chain. Miller tells GlobeSt.com that his client's first assignment a decade ago was to find a site in Irving. While waiting out a spot in the targeted 20,000-sf East Irving Boulevard center, he matched the 30-year-old chain, which caters to the Hispanic community, to nine other locations in Dallas-Fort Worth.

Miller, whose client list includes names such as RadioShack and Discount Tire, says he learned from the major league players that "you find the right intersection or you don't do the deal." In the case of the south Irving center at 808-818 E. Irving Blvd., patience paid off as the three brokers plied their skills to create a site as leases expired at the prized location. "It's the intersection to be at," Miller says. "There's hardly any vacancy at all in that trade area."

The unnamed vintage center, owned by Horton & Roosth Ltd. of Dallas sits on a one-acre tract across the street from a Fiesta store, a mainstream Hispanic grocer, and adjacent to El Rod's Cost Plus, a "mom and pop" discount store. In late May, the owners wrapped up an extensive renovation, Levinson says.

The submarket's rental rates run from $12 per sf to $16 per sf. Jefferson Dental Clinic, which is ramping up the finish-out crew, intends to open in 30 days, now that it's taken down a favored site for the long term.