Same-Day, Off-Market Closing Stacks 34 Tracts for $15M-Plus Plan

PLANO, TX-With nine months invested into the plan, the Dallas-based Predium has pulled off an off-market coup with a one-day closing for 34 deeds from 15 property owners for a developable hard corner in Far North Dallas. Ground will break in late spring on a retail and medical office development.

Predium principal Seth Weinstein tells GlobeSt.com that Preston Shade Plaza will have 30,000 sf of retail on 3.5 acres and 75,000 sf of medical office condos on the back 6.5 acres. He estimates the all-in cost to develop the project, which has Preston Road frontage, will exceed $15 million.

Weinstein says the deal began with a telephone call to Otis Hawkins, the owner of the three-acre hard corner that's housed Hawkins Nursery for 42 years. "My timing was right," Weinstein says. After sealing a deal with Hawkins within 48 hours of the cold call, Weinstein then began eyeing the surrounding vacant land, divvied into residential lots in the late 1970s and empty after all these years. He says he spent the next nine months rounding up owners from Texas to California to assemble the tract at Preston's junction with Mapleshade Drive.

"The biggest hurdle was convincing them it's time to sell and getting them to the closing table on the same day. It was a pretty challenging experience," Weinstein says. "But, I wasn't going to buy it unless I got it all." The tracts range from 10,000 sf to 3.5 acres, the largest of which was bought from the Top Achievers Foundation of Dallas. The most expensive, he says, was the Hawkins Nursery land.

Weinstein set the plan into motion after realizing how little land was available now that Dallas-based Baylor Healthcare System had expanded the Plano hospital. The land is one block south of the George Bush Toll Road and a few blocks from the Baylor Regional Medical Center. The sweet spot is the acreage has ready-to-go zoning.

Since the closing, the Predium team has had offers from several banks for a corner pad site and is talking to a national pharmacy for a second parcel. Weinstein says orders are starting to be placed for the professional condos--and the architect has yet to be picked. "The activity's out of control," he says.

Predium will handle retail pre-leasing and condo pre-sales. If the plan stays on track, the class A space will deliver in the fourth quarter. American National Bank of Terrell, TX provided construction financing.