DALLAS-After nearly seven months of negotiations, Amazon.com Inc. has signed on the dotted line for a 630,800-sf distribution center on a 40-year ground lease inside the lines of the D/FW International Airport. Not only is it the Internet retailer's first facility in Texas, but it's the largest industrial lease to date this year in the metroplex.
The Seattle-based Fortune 500 company will open doors before September on Trade Center I at 2700 Regent Blvd. in the International Commerce Park. The brokers who negotiated the long-term lease were unavailable for comment. Amazon.com's tenant rep team was led by John Hanson, vice president in Trammell Crow Co.'s Kent, WA office, and included TCC Dallas principal Seth Kelly, vice president Ryan Keiser and associate Bart Fassino. Running the deal for TCC was its senior vice president Dayton Conklin and principal Scott Krikorian.
Industry sources say the Amazon.com deal has been one of the most closely guarded in the market this year. One source close to the deal did confirm the initial search included other owners' inventory near the airport although the TCC-developed spec building scored the win. The 125-crossdock office/warehouse, sitting on 35.4 acres, carries Triple Freeport and Foreign Trade Zone inventory exemptions. It's designed with a 150-foot truck court and 50-foot expansion capability for trailer parking, both strong selling points due to revamped long-haul trucking regulations. The building was marketed at roughly $3.25 per sf net.
Finish-out on the spec industrial building, which delivered last summer, will get under way in the coming weeks. All that can be learned about the lease term is that Amazon.com is in place for the long haul.
The 10-year-old Amazon.com has a storied history of unions trying to recruit workers at its US fulfillment centers, but Texas is a right-to-work state. According to published accounts, the retailer closed a 50-worker tool distribution center in March in Grand Forks, ND.
An Amazon.com spokeswoman tells GlobeSt.com that the Dallas fulfillment center will house larger, non-conveyable items from its home and garden, electronics and kitchen stores. Amazon.com has several non-conveyable facilities in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona. Its fully automated fulfillment network has one center each in Delaware, Kansas and Nevada and two in Kentucky. The network includes Amazon.com-operated centers in the UK, Germany, France and Scotland plus partnership operations in Canada, Japan and China.
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