Ingram Micro Stays Put in 235,302 SF

Ingram Micro, a publicly traded, California-based computer distributor, got the abatement extension in exchange for a 10-year term on its renewal at 1809 W. Frankford Road, Brad Mink with the city's economic development office, tells GlobeSt.com. "They're the largest inventory warehouse in the city," he says about an abatement resulting in an 85% reduction of real and personal property taxes. The fulfillment center, with a 200-employee workforce, is perhaps the largest in Carrollton's bounds. "We're glad to be keeping them. They certainly had a number of options," he says.

Leading the site search was Ingram's broker, Thomas T. Lynn, president of the Robert Lynn Co. in Irving. "At the end of the day, we stayed because the landlord was very aggressive in helping with our rent as well as giving us some flexibility in the lease," he says, crediting the city's abatement extension with the extra leverage needed to sway the deal to the Indianapolis-based property owner, Duke Realty Corp.

Lynn says Ingram at one point considered moving the operation to its one-million-sf campus in Memphis. "With the incentives and economics, we were able to keep them in Dallas," he says. The firm has occupied 65% of Frankford Interchange since it delivered in 1997.

Duke's quoted rate is $3.25 per sf for office/warehouse space in the nine-building, 1.3-million-sf Trinity Mills Business Park off Interstate 35. "And we were able to get a discount off that," Lynn says.

The deal is one of, if not the, largest to have closed in the first quarter for the Dallas side of the metroplex. "When a deal that size comes up for renewal, landlords get pretty aggressive," says Jeff Thornton, Duke's point man on the deal. "We did feel like were in a competitive situation to keep that tenant in that building."

Thornton says the building has never had a vacancy. The 144,700-sf balance is leased to Advanced Marketing Services, a logistics provider. Should AMS decide to vacate, Ingram Micro is waiting in the wings.