343,617-SF Industrial Building Wins National Cabinetmaker's Nod

As one of South Dallas' top five employers, the nationally known cabinetmaker was focused on staying in its home turf, says Ken Wesson, executive vice president of Dallas-based Bradford Cos. "South Dallas works from a labor force standpoint," he says. "They needed to stay in the southern sector." To meet that requirement, Continental Cabinets weighed various combinations of its three owned buildings and two leased sites before settling on 5800 Kiest Blvd. for the long term. The deal effectively is a consolidation with a slight expansion.

Jake Marks with Dallas-based Trammell Crow Co. says the negotiated package is "a market deal and market TIs." The building, emptied in January by Service Craft LLC of Buena Park, CA, was on the market at $2.50 per sf net.

Marks says the deal went full circle in six weeks after the cabinetmaker decided to take over the Oak Cliff building, owned by New York City-based Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America. He says the clear-cut advantage over other nearby industrial product is a 21-acre tract with outside storage and parking for up to 70 trailers. The Redbird Industrial Park structure, built in 1981 and expanded in 1998, also is outfitted with heavy power requirements because it was built for manufacturing.

Not only does the deal backfill the largest open block in South Dallas seven months after it was vacated, but "we were able to retain the headquarters of one of the top cabinetmakers in the country," Marks stresses. The bulk of the finish-out will be aimed at retooling the 12,000-sf office for the headquarters team for the 500-employee operation.

Wesson tells GlobeSt.com that he will begin marketing two owned sites in early September: a 115,000-sf corporate office and manufacturing building at 2841 Pierce St., the first place in the nation where 7-Eleven Corp. made its world-famous Slurpee, and a 65,000-sf storage building at 2801 W. Saner Ave. The firm's still deciding the fate of a 50,000-sf building at 3334 N. Beckley Rd. in Lancaster. The plan is to exit leased space at the end of September when the pacts expire, according to Wesson, Continental Cabinets' broker since the late 1990s.

Wesson says Continental Cabinets' corporate chiefs were looking at holding onto some owned assets just six months ago, but then swung into action to pull all operations under one roof. "At that point, Kiest really was the only building that could accommodate them," Wesson says, "and it truly was the perfect building."