GlobeSt.com EXCLUSIVE: Retail Hotspot Spawns $10M Plan

Harvest Real Estate Cos. and Wilcox Development Services will build a $10-million, two-phase retail project along US Highway 78. Wal-Mart flanks the east and Wylie City Hall sits on the west of the soon-to-rise Harvest Village.

D. Randall Potts, Harvest president, tells GlobeSt.com that the plan is to break ground between August and September on 20,000 sf of retail, deliver it nine months later and then roll out a second phase of 15,000 sf to 18,000 sf. Not only is it rare to get land before Wal-Mart gets it all and then carves out a chunk to a favored follower, but Potts also managed to get cross-access easements and a shared parking lot with the retail giant.

Potts, now tackling his first development, says he was looking at several parcels in the area to buy, secure entitlements and resell to developers when the "opportunity" arose to get in the door before Wal-Mart could break ground. "The timing just worked out for us," he says of land bought a year ago. "We just had an opportunity and thought we better take advantage of it."

Like the Bentonville, AR-based retail giant, Potts bought the site from CT Beckham of Dallas, who used the two land sales to catapult the US Highway 78-Kreymer Lane intersection into the next development hotspot for the far northeastern sector. Beckham has since hired Stephen Summers with Dallas-based Staubach Co., who recently sold 8.7 acres across the road to a Dallas developer who's fine-tuning plans for a 56,125-sf shopping center.

Jonathan Cooper and Chris Gibbons with Venture Commercial in Dallas are locked in talks that, if the deals get signed, would pre-lease 40% of Harvest Village and speed the ground-breaking. The leasing team is courting local and national retailers for inline space while a bank and restaurant are being wooed for a pair of pad sites.

OmniPlan of Dallas designed Harvest Village. Terry Lowrey, senior vice president for Wilcox Real Estate Construction Services, is handling construction management.