Bradford Expands Texas Footprint

DALLAS-In a quiet expansion, Dallas-based Bradford Cos. has set up offices in Houston and Midland and a new regional office in Grand Prairie. More locations are likely to follow.

A management and leasing contract with a private REIT spurred the offices at 550 Post Oak, a 54,105-sf building in Houston, and Wilco Tower, a 197,207-sf office structure at 415 W. Wall St. in Midland. The Dallas-Fort Worth regional office is located at 1320 Post & Paddock in Grand Prairie.

The REIT, says a Bradford contact, is looking to buy more Texas assets so as the portfolio grows so will Bradford’s office count. Bradford COO AL Horstmann is overseeing the offices, each ramped up with one property manager, for now. In recent months, Bradford hired Todd Lambeth, a top-ranked producer in the region, to work the Tarrant County market from the Grand Prairie location.

Kevin J. Santaularia, Bradford president and CEO, says that the Texas market “has been identified as a key growth area due to the lack of ‘Texas-based’ regional players.” As a result, Bradford is pushing its Texas roots for a “serving Texas” strategy to add to the institutional-seeded portfolio.

The portfolio now exceeds 10 million sf, including one million sf in El Paso owned by longtime client, Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., and a relatively new Dallas-Fort Worth contract in the Mid Cities for the 1.4-million-sf Brookhollow Commerce Center owned by State Teachers Retirement System if Ohio. The firm’s institutional black book includes such names as Principal Financial Group, St. Paul, EastGroup Properties, Aegon and New York Life.