North Texas Firm Grabs 23 Acres Off Market for $35M Office Park

Holt Lunsford's team, which leases and manages the majority of Boston-based TA Associates Inc.'s Vista Ridge footprint, "got a whisper that it might be able to be bought," John Hoctor, managing principal of the Addison-headquartered firm, tells GlobeSt.com. "We went directly to the ownership and worked out a deal." The choice piece of developable acreage was sold by a Dallas family trust, which bought it about two years ago from Dallas-based Centex Corp. Dirt in the Texas 121-Interstate 35 corridor of Lewisville can bring $6 per sf to $10 per sf.

Hoctor says the acquisition and flips went full circle in 90 days. Opus West Corp.'s Dallas/Fort Worth team picked up six acres for an 80,000-sf office building for Horizon Health Corp., which leases headquarters space in nearby Waters Ridge. A local company, preferring anonymity at this stage, took down three acres for a 20,000-sf to 30,000-sf general office building that will be designed and developed by Holt's team. "What the land sales did were validate our site," he stresses.

Hoctor, who structured the deal, says it will be 60 to 90 days before the final design is done for Vista Ridge Pointe, being set on lakefront land abutting the City of Lewisville's amphitheater. "The decision is what we are going to build and not as much as when we're going to build," he says. "We believe in that submarket for spec development or else we wouldn't have bought the land."

To be determined is if the spec space will rise as a 160,000-sf building or 80,000-sf twins. The door also is open for another build-to-suit. With deed restrictions in place, it will definitely be a two-story design with tilt-wall construction much like the rest of Vista Ridge, Hoctor says. Contracts are being finalized with the architect and general contractor. The value office product is expected to hit the market in the $20 per sf range plus electric.

Holt's coup comes just as TA Associates is ramping up construction for another 120,000-sf building to set up expansion space for EMC Mortgage Corp., a Bear Stearns & Co. Inc. subsidiary that leased the 120,000-sf Vista Ridge III about four months ago. Holt leases and manages 240,000 sf of TA's 360,000-sf, three-building complex. The Dallas-based Myers & Crow Co. Ltd. oversees the balance of TA's space.