Owner/User Office Park Eyed for 14 Acres

The buyer is Morstan LP, an affiliate of Maylar LP, led by Dallas real estate veteran, Stanley Hickman, and Craig Johnson. The land is strategically positioned along Guilder Drive, one block south of Plano Parkway and east of Jupiter Road in a light industrial area with the Atlanta-based Industrial Developments International Inc. as an immediate neighbor. Larger land parcels in the area are bringing $3 per sf to $4 per sf while smaller tracts are fetching $4 per sf to $5 per sf.

Johnson tells GlobeSt.com that he anticipates breaking ground in 60 to 90 days on a 20,000-sf spec project. The plan is before Plano officials for a re-platting of the land.

The land traded in all-cash transaction in a 60-day start to finish between Johnson and the seller's broker, Cary Krier of Dallas-based Bradford Co. Krier has landed the job of marketing the project, which has yet to be named and the final costs tabulated. Architect Gary Limbaugh of LDA Design Group in Richardson is designing the project.

The build-out plan calls for structures in the 20,000-sf to 40,000-sf category, with product being both leased and owner-occupied. With the ink barely dry, Johnson already is holding one letter of intent for a 2.5-acre parcel.

"We see a real need for owner/user small buildings. They don't exist in Plano for the most part," says Johnson, who's undertaking his first development in five years. "The market's starting to come back." The hook for the Plano project, he believes, is a dock-high design. "There are no small dock-high buildings over there," he says of a plan for a spec building with four docks.