Wal-Mart Weighing $467,500 Offer for Nine Acres

Wal-Mart isn't discussing yesterday's auction at 600 E. Loop 820 in Fort Worth, a tract flanked by an apartment complex and a relatively new Albertsons-anchored center. Sources say Wal-Mart paid $1 million in 1989 for the land, which later housed a 107,997-sf store. The building was razed after the retailer built a SuperCenter just to the south.

The prospective buyer, Al Danesh of Dallas, tells GlobeSt.com that if the sale closes ground could break within 18 months on an 80,000-sf shopping center. Danesh's Austin partner has 20 years of developing retail, but he's not ready to disclose the firm's identity. However, the project would be the partners' first in Fort Worth.

Danesh bested Jean Pierre of Millennium Properties in Dallas with a $425,000 bid in an auction that started with five bidders and quickly dropped to two. A 10% premium is added to the top bid and the offer goes before a Wal-Mart committee, which has 10 days to approve the sale. If it clears, the closing will be held on or before Nov. 12.

Pierre says the acreage was particularly attractive because it doesn't carry the usual Wal-Mart restrictions on development. A Houston sale fell out after Wal-Mart learned the prospective buyer was planning a liquor store development.

Terry Syler with the Retail Connection in Dallas says the site was eyed several years ago by Circuit City. Despite the acreage's visibility, he says the location isn't high on retailers' radar screens. But, that could change now that the Woodhaven neighborhood is part of an Empowerment Zone and in the midst of a revitalization.

The Wal-Mart disposition began Sept. 21 in Jonesboro, AR. The Fort Worth sale was one of two planned for the region, but a one-acre site at the junction of US Highway 66 and North Lake Shore Drive in Rockwall was pulled from the roster six days ago. The Texas sell-off wraps up today in Amarillo, with Higgenbotham Auctioneers International Inc. of Lakeland, FL, heading to Minneapolis and then Wisconsin to polish off the disposition.

The Texas properties included three parcels, totaling 4.6 acres, in Cedar Park near Austin. Word is it fetched more than Wal-Mart's expectations, unlike the Fort Worth property which opened at $1 million and closed for significantly less. Other tracts were sold in Port Arthur, Houston and Mexia, TX, as well as Nashville, AR and Lake Charles, LA.