JV Closes 40-Acre Buy for $35M Shopping Center

SHERMAN, TX-Capping 1.5 years of talks, the Woodmont Co., with Prudential Life Insurance Co. of America's equity backing, has bought 40 acres to develop a 300,000-sf shopping center at a key retail crossroads in a suburb north of Dallas. The project's all-in cost is pegged at $35 million.

"This is at the front door of this city," James Weir, vice president with Fort Worth-based Woodmont, says about the Sherman land, assembled from four sellers. The developer has cordoned off the eastern side of the US Highway 75-Loy Lake Road junction where nearly two million sf of retail are up and running, under construction or on the drawing boards as is Sherman Commons.

Woodmont, looking to shore up a strategic foothold, is deep in talks with the city and state transportation department to rework streets, frontage roads and feeder points to improve traffic flow at the project site, says Greg Rabin, Woodmont senior vice president. Construction will get under way in October; delivery is penciled for spring 2006.

Weir and Rabin say Sherman Commons will be 50% preleased before it starts and will be filled by the time it delivers. They tell GlobeSt.com that a 75,000-sf Academy Sports will anchor a 26-acre center that includes room for four, maybe as many as six junior anchor boxes ranging from 25,000 to 35,000 sf. The 14-acre balance is reserved for restaurant pad sites, which already has picked up interest from Ryan's Steakhouse. To date, Conn's Electronics has a letter of intent for 25,000 sf and PetsMart has taken 20,000 sf. Deals are pending for two more junior anchor boxes, including a soft goods retailer that's new to the Sherman market, according to Rabin. The retail space is being quoted at $15 per sf to $25 per sf.

Sherman Commons will sit across Loy Lake Road from the 850,000-sf Sherman Town Center, a project of Houston-based NewQuest Properties Inc. Its other neighbors are Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, Toys 'R Us and a dark Kmart being primed for redevelopment. "There's plenty of demand still there," Weir says, citing a 1,400-acre golf course community that's rising within five miles and the relatively close Lake Texoma, the third-largest manmade lake in the US with 1,200 miles of shoreline.

Weir says architect, Hershman Associates of Dallas, is just beginning to design the project so "the look" has yet to be gamed out. Plyler Construction Co. of Sherman is the general contractor.

The land was bought from TPJ Properties Ltd., Ganapathy Ltd. and local residents, Beatrice S. Mathis and Lamar C. Jackson. "The hardest part was keeping all the sellers confident that we were going to get them to a payday without re-trading," Rabin says, "and get the commitments with our retailers. But it worked and everyone did a phenomenal job."