FORT WORTH-With two years invested into the talks, Chicago-based Ridge Property Trust and the Texas Permanent School Fund have struck a deal for a long-term ground lease for 363 acres. Ground will break by year's end on the first building to a $200-million-plus, mixed-use plan.
Kent Newsom, Ridge's regional vice president, tells GlobeSt.com that the 3.1-million-sf master plan for Ridge Commerce Park and a joint venture deal with a major local retail developer will be ready to present to the fund's executive team in 60 to 90 days. The acreage, spanning both sides of Interstate 35W, neighbors Hillwood's AllianceTexas, setting up a competitive scenario for industrial, manufacturing, office/showroom and retail space. The land is just south of the Cabella's store, Hillwood's anchor for its retail plan for the I-35W corridor.
"North Fort Worth is a proven commodity," Newsom says. "It needs another player there and we're coming. I think there's a place for us and for them."
Ridge Commerce Park will be the developer's largest project in the region to date. "We will offer product that will compete with Alliance, but we'll try to differentiate ourselves," Newsom says, adding the plan is to "piggyback" off AllianceTexas' success.
Newsom says it's uncertain if the first building will rise on the 168 acres on the east side of Interstate 35W or the 195-acre balance on the west. What is certain is a distribution-oriented building with at least 150,000 sf will start to come out of the ground on a spec or partially preleased basis by year's end. Synergy Properties of Fort Worth, which sold the land to the fund, will be preleasing Ridge Commerce Park.
Also still to be decided is the extent of the Texas Permanent Land Fund's participation in the project. "It's possible they will be a partner on the vertical structures, but that will be determined on a case-by-case basis," Newsom says.
Newsom says he's been eyeing North Fort Worth for a long time for an industrial development site. He started courting the fund as soon as he heard it was poised to buy the raw land, which has roughly a half-mile of interstate frontage on each side. With that kind of opening, Newsom says "there will definitely be retail" although that's not Ridge's forte, which is why its execs immediately jumpstarted talks with a JV prospect.
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