Dallas Investors Buy 25,000-SF NTB Store

The 14107 Inwood Road deed is the second one bought in four months by the partnership, led by lead executives, Sam Kartalis and Greg Trout. "We are buying small properties that make sense," Kartalis tells GlobeSt.com. The first purchase was an empty 55,000-sf warehouse at 3008 Avenue F in the Great Southwest Industrial District.

Trout says the NTB retail store, with 17 years left on the lease, will double as a training and distribution site for the chain's new owner, TBC Corp. of Palm Beach Garden, FL, which acquired the 225-shop network in December 2003 from the Chicago-based Sears. TBC also owns 350 stores in the Southeast under the Tire Kingdom/Merchant's brand and 510 Big O stores in the West, Midwest and Canada.

The Dallas acquisition was funded with a 20-year loan with a 10-year call, Kartalis says of financing secured with an insurance company lender and arranged by Paul Heath with the Henry S. Miller Investment Banking Group. The Inwood Road store, built in 1969 on 2.2 acres, is assessed at $1.1 million by Dallas Central Appraisal District.

The NTB store was on the open market with a $2.5-million ask. Tom Clarke, senior vice president in Dallas for Grubb & Ellis Co., was running the deal for Fiddler Investments of Dallas, which bought the shop in 1998.

Kartalis and Trout, though, are tossing down the gauntlet to Dallas/Fort Worth brokers as they look for more properties to buy. "Any broker that brings us a deal gets the full commission," Kartalis says, adding the perk "is part of the drive to get them to show us their properties.