22-Acre Buy Jumpstarts 235,000-SF Plan

Reliance Asset Management of Dallas is working its way through the permitting stage for the just-bought land along US Highway 78 in Sachse and prepping for a ground-breaking as soon as the documents are in hand, Tom Grunnah, associate with Dallas-based Henry S. Miller Commercial in Dallas, tells GlobeSt.com. The developer acquired 16.2 acres of light industrial-zoned land at the highway's intersection with Ranch Road and a nearby 5.8 acres with 462 feet of prime frontage and a C2-designation for office and retail. The going rate for most retail dirt in the Collin County pocket, about 27 miles from the Dallas city limits, is $6.50 per sf.

Grunnah says the larger tract, with an asking rate of $1.50 per sf, was acquired after five months of negotiations with Ray Dean Miller of Nevada, TX, who owned the land nearly three decades. The buyer has 175,000 sf sitting on the sidelines until permits arrive for the first wave of office/warehouse development.

Plans are still being kicked around for the 5.8-acre tract, bought from longtime owner, Ernest Lander of Garland, but it will be mostly built out with retail, according to Grunnah. Lander, seeking $4 per sf for his tract, was represented by Richard Cole of Cole Real Estate Agency in Mesquite while Miller handled his side of the bargaining. In both trades, both buyers sold the land for close to the asking prices.

Reliance Asset's land is near the entrance of Woodbridge Estates with 1,000 single-family lots, the 18-hole Woodbridge Golf Club and 222-unit Woodbridge Villas owned by Dallas-based Lincoln Property Co. "It used to be country," Grunnah says. "It's no longer the country; it's a suburb of Dallas."

Since midyear 2003, Grunnah has sold at least 65 acres to developers and is holding listings for another 150 acres, plus or minus, of commercially zoned land in the US Highway 78 path between Wylie and Sachse. The fast-paced development, he says, "is a natural progression with the expansion of the roads.