DENTON, TX-A Dallas developer has scored an off-market coup with the acquisition of 214 acres with extensive frontage along a state highway to build retail, residential and possibly office space in the Alliance corridor. At least $14 million, including the land cost, will go into developing infrastructure for a plan that is destined to surpass a $50-million build-out value.
Lester Day, senior director of land development for NAI Stoneleigh Huff Brous McDowell, tells GlobeSt.com that it will take about one year for Marlin Atlantis to complete infrastructure for Rivers Edge, a development being set up with 640 single-family lots and 30 acres of commercial space along Texas 114 in south Denton County. The four corners of commercial land are capable of supporting at least 300,000 sf. Marlin Atlantis, predominately a residential builder with projects in Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston, has Day prepping to market the commercial land at a "to be determined" price.
Day says the seller, Ferbro Investments of Houston, owned the land about a decade. "It was time for them to sell unless they were going to develop it themselves," he says about the motive to let go of the hold. Nine months were spent negotiating the off-market purchase, he says.
Infrastructure work will begin "as soon as possible," Day says. The goal is to ready the land with utility lines and streets so residential and retail space can start coming out of the ground in 2006.
Day says several retail developers have shown interest in one-third to all of the commercial land. Meanwhile, a couple owner/users are waiting in the wings for a smaller stake. He says the first deal should be nailed down within six months.
The acreage is situated across a two-lane road from the Northwest Independent School District campus, which has 4,000 students and faculty coming and going each day. It also sits to the east of the 1,320-lot Harriet Creek development and three miles west of Interstate 35W. And, Day says, there's no retail in the immediate vicinity. "There's a dire need for neighborhood services in this market," he stresses. "Retail's going to follow this development real close. They need some place to pick up their dry cleaning and buy their ice cream."
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