Countrywide Buys 293,939-SF Office Building in North Fort Worth

The Calabasas, CA-based Countrywide plans to retool the 4200 Amon Carter Blvd. building and open doors by the third quarter, according to a corporate contact. He says the mortgage company will add 1,400 to 1,500 jobs to the region with the latest move in a two-year growth spurt to make Countrywide one of the region's fastest-growing employers. The contact says the building will house loan administration personnel and possibly include staff from its consumer markets division.

Tim Terrell, senior vice president and partner in Stream Realty Partners LP in Dallas, had the 21-year-old building up for lease at $12 per sf, triple net for the Raleigh, NC-based Cherokee Investment Partners LLC, which bought the asset in August 2002 from American Airlines' locally based parent, AMR Corp. "They made an offer they couldn't refuse," Terrell tells GlobeSt.com about a deal that went from contract to close in 45 days.

Countrywide's long-time brokerage house, Travers Realty Co. of Los Angeles, handled its side of the negotiations. The site is "reasonably close to its Fort Worth campus," Terrell says. Two years ago, Countrywide paid $16 million for a 387,628-sf, two-story building on 41 acres, carved out from a 99-acre, 1.1-million-sf campus once owned by Schaumburg, IL-based Motorola Inc. Countrywide also occupies 5401 N. Beach St. in the Fossil Creek Business Park in North Fort Worth and several million sf in Plano and Richardson.