GlobeSt.com UPDATE: Hillwood Details AllianceTexas Expansion

"All [three] will basically be vested in the development of this logistics park," Mike Berry, president of Hillwood Properties, tells GlobeSt.com. Hillwood's still laying out the master plan and cost for an expansion that takes AllianceTexas to 17,000 acres in two counties. He estimates it will be spring before the plan and cost are in place. For previous story, click here.

The best guess right now is about 350 acres will be needed for open space to accommodate flood plain, roads, rail lines and utility corridors. Berry estimates the land will produce 854 acres with rail service and set up a total of 1,000 acres with direct access to Fort Worth Alliance Airport, the BNSF Intermodal Yard and the to-be-built FM 156. The extra land is rolling in just as Hillwood is going out for bids on 800,000 cubic yards of dirt to add 1,500 feet to the 9,600-foot airport runway.

In less than two decades, AllianceTexas has gone from farmland to an industrial hub anchored by an airport with a Foreign Trade Zone designation. "We've experienced a lot of growth at Alliance from the intermodal and BNSF hub," Berry says. "That's something we wanted to build on...but didn't have the ability to bring a rail spur out of the intermodal."

Berry says Hillwood and BNSF started looking at ways to expand the intermodal yard to make it comparable or larger than its facility in Joliet, IL. That's when all eyes turned to the trust, which owns 3,000 acres in and around Alliance Airport. "This big idea surfaced between Hillwood and BNSF to integrate that property into the master plan of Alliance," he says. The end result is the second largest land acquisition in AllianceTexas' history.

Berry says there have been "early discussions with a number of people" interested in being the first to develop in Logistics Park-AllianceTexas. There are 30 acres sitting ready to jumpstart the rail-served plan. He says the infrastructure will be phased in from the south to the north, with 327 acres ticketed for direct rail access and another 527 acres that could be linked down the road. He says about 1,000 acres will end up with direct rail, air and highway access to set up a super-size play for users like an airplane manufacturing company.

Berry believes the logistics park's development could step up plans to extend FM 156, which is part of a three- to five-year airport expansion plan. But, he stresses, there is no intent to compete with Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. "This is all about industrial development," he says. "It's not about passenger aircraft. ...We want to be the logistics center of North America. I don't think there's any other site in North America with a rail spur, intermodal hub, runway and highway all in one area.

AllianceTexas is only 30% built out with 130 companies and 20,000 jobs in 23.5 million sf. The extra land will accommodate another 16 million sf to take the build-out potential to 88 million sf and possibly 92,000 jobs for the region.

The rail yard was set up in 1990 as an automotive facility for the former Santa Fe Railway. Four years later it was outfitted as an intermodal facility, jumping from 150,000 annual lifts to 500,000.

"The ability to provide our carload customers with direct rail service is the one component missing in this industry-leading Logistics Park," Fritz Draper, BNSF vice president of business development, says in a press release. "By adding this important component to Logistics Park-AllianceTexas, we will be able to provide our customers with a full suite of transportation options--intermodal, transload, automotive and carload service with distribution and warehousing--in one location."

Mike Griffin, the trust's attorney, says "this partnership is a great opportunity for the Cole family to be involved in this property for many generations, with excellent partners, as opposed to liquidation." Trustees Susan Mead, Don Cole and Amy Griffin had local independent brokers Robert Dryden and Wayne Pickering represent the trust in the negotiations. Created in the 1930s, the MT Cole Trust owns 10,000 acres in southern Denton County and about 3,000 acres around Alliance Airport.