DALLAS-ML Realty Partners LLC has acquired three office/warehouses, totaling 254,269 sf, in two unrelated deals to push its Greater Dallas portfolio to one million sf in one buying year. The fully leased space has brought roughly $45 per sf.
"The real estate is very good. The tenants are good and the locations are good. They fit us to a 'T'," says Ron Carey, regional vice president for Chicago-based ML Realty. The newest portfolio pieces are 1635 Innovation Dr. in Rockwall and 8301-21 Carpenter Freeway and 1111 Regal Row, both in Dallas' Brookhollow Industrial District.
The deals' sweet spot, though, is all leases are relatively new. Carey tells GlobeSt.com that Col-Met Spray Booths Inc. has 10 years left on its term for the 124,207-sf Innovation Dr. building in the Rockwall Technology Park while FedEx has five years remaining on the Regal Row lease. The other Brookhollow building is leased to W.W. Grainger Inc. and Gypsum Supply Ltd., which are tied to their spaces for 10 years and seven years, respectively. And it was the leases, he says, that "really attracted us." Likewise, freeway-fronting locations made "them a very logical choice for us to acquire," he adds.
The Rockwall property was sold by James Collier of Dallas and the Brookhollow pair by Allen Cullum, also a Dallas investor. CB Richard Ellis' Larry Leon single-handedly brokered the Rockwall deal and teamed with David Easterling and Steve Berger on the pass of the 70,452-sf multi-tenant building and the FedEx-leased 60,010-sf structure.
The Col-Met building opened in April 2004. The Brookhollow buildings are 1960-era designs that were extensively upgraded in recent years.
ML Realty has checked off its 11th industrial acquisition this year in Dallas with the closings. One more deal could close before year's end. The plan, to date, has been to acquire fully leased properties, with one exception--a 102,000-sf office/warehouse at 2002 Avenue R in Grand Prairie. The building, bought empty, is being marketed at $2.75 per sf, triple net, by Michael Stanzel with NAI Robert Lynn in Dallas. CBRE manages the ML Realty portfolio.
Carey says he's sizing up development land in North Texas now that he's built "a strong existing platform in Dallas." The plan is to break ground--some place in Dallas--in 2007. In Houston, ML Realty is well under way on a 300-acre park near the port, where it's raising two build-to-suits, totaling 500,000 sf, and 600,000 sf in a pair of spec buildings.
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