GlobeSt.com EXCLUSIVE: Developer Maps Out 500,000-SF Retail Plan

FRISCO, TX-A Dallas developer, with equity backing from a silent partner, has laid out a retail plan with 500,000 sf and eight pad sites for a 50-acre tract at the confluence of three city lines. Though there's work yet to do, Custer Bridges, an estimated $45-million undertaking, is expected to break ground in five months.

"We're getting a very, very strong response from the tenant market," Roger Gault, president of the Gault Co., tells GlobeSt.com. "We thought the site might be green when we bought it, but we're very encouraged by the response." Gault and his partner bought the site about five months ago, getting the northwest corner at the junction of Texas 121 and Custer Road, where Frisco, McKinney and Allen converge.

Gault says the finishing touches have just gone onto the master plan. The Dallas teams of Good Fulton & Farrell designed Custer Bridges and Kimley-Horn & Associates Inc. is its civil engineer. Gault's now in the process of securing approvals from the US Army Corps of Engineers, which is needed because a creek bisects the land, Texas Department of Transportation and City of Frisco. Gault says the project will be ready to start by the time the approvals are in hand. Build-out will take about two years.

Gault has the Retail Connection in Dallas pushing the space. The developer says brokers to date have locked in three tenants for pad sites and started talks with big-box users, all national names and not one grocery store. Custer Bridges is planned for big box, junior anchors and 25,000 sf of spec shop space. Space is quoted in the low to mid-$20 per sf range.

Custer Bridges is Gault's largest retail project since he helped to map out the component for Uptown's Cityplace at 2711 N. Haskell Ave. The Frisco development, unlike the smaller shopping centers that he's built in recent years, is being set up as a long-term hold. "We think this location will hold its value for a long, long time," Gault says.