Freight-Forwarder Planning 10-Acre Project

HASLET, TX-After a yearlong search for an expansion site, KFS Inc. has bought a 10-acre hard corner in AllianceTexas, planning a shift of its warehousing operation from a 17-year location at D/FW International Airport. The global transportation company plans to keep its headquarters at the airport and put two of its three buildings up for sale.

James Keller, president of KFS, tells GlobeSt.com that ground will break in October on an estimated 140,000-sf warehouse, with completion eyed for April 2007 at the corner of Tradewind Drive and Intermodal Parkway. "We have grown to the point that we need some first-class warehouse space," he says. The transporter, like many of its peers these days, has a Hong Kong office to support its network in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles and Seattle. The headquarters sits at 900 Port America Place in Grapevine and it has two warehouses at 1722 Minters Chapel Rd.

Keller says the dealmakers to buy land in Hillwood's Westport corridor were the Burlington Northern Santa Fe intermodal yard and the Foreign Trade Zone status. "Alliance had all the elements that we wanted," he says. The rest of the must-haves will come in a design by Dallas-based Good Fulton & Farrell Architects.

Noel Hutcheson and Rick Hughes with Cushman & Wakefield of Texas Inc. spent roughly a year on the site search. "We were focused on all sites from the D/FW airport and west," Hutcheson says. "What really was important at the end of the day for Hillwood and KFS was the location, Foreign Trade Zone, Triple Freeport and the featured amenities of Alliance, which are unmatched in any other park."

KFS, though, isn't the only company about to land in the Westport section of the 17,000-acre AllianceTexas, where rail, air and highway come together. Another 10-acre tract, give or take, has been sold right beside the KFS site. At least half of the 50 acres sold to date this year in AllianceTexas have tapped Westport's reserves, says Tony Creme, marketing manager for the locally based Hillwood.

"The demand is definitely picking up on that side of the park," Creme says, crediting import traffic from China with the strong uptick in regional industrial demand. The BNSF tracks are a direct connection to the California ports.

One million sf has been absorbed this year in AllianceTexas' 25 million sf. Hillwood historically has at least 600,000 sf of ready-to-fill space to wager on deals in the market. With demand so strong, the development team has just delivered a 400,000-sf spec project on the park's eastern front, pushing the available stock to 700,000 sf.

Meanwhile, the Fort Worth-based BNSF's intermodal yard in AllianceTexas is projected to hit 600,000 lifts this year, with nearly 80% of the goods coming from Asia. To meet its demand, BNSF is working the dirt on a couple hundred abutting acres to add more trailer and chassis parking.

AllianceTexas is the statewide model, maybe even nationwide, for today's favorite catch phrase, inland port. "It's an established, well-oiled inland port that's been there 15 years," Creme says. "This one deal is an indication of the interest we've had in Westport in general. It's a global transportation company. They just fit into the story perfectly."