Robert Clay, president of the locally based industrialdevelopment firm, tells GlobeSt.com that he sat down at the closingtable with a 12-year tenant in hand for two office buildingstotaling 57,700 sf. And that, he says, was key to the $5-milliontakedown since he, like other industrial developers, couldn't beweighted down by two vacant office buildings while trying toredevelop a 26-acre industrial holding that included 88,000 sf ofmanufacturing space. "In order to get it, we had to take it all,"he says of the northwest Houston acreage at Tanner and Thompsonroads.

The Thomas Road Business Park's first tenant is Aqua Services,which moved in immediately and freed Clay to focus on finding atenant for a 58,000-sf manufacturing facility and five supportbuildings with another 30,000 sf. He's now in the final stages ofnegotiations with a tenant for the entire 8.5-acre manufacturingcomplex. He predicts the deal with the oil and gas company will beinked by Oct. 15.

With the existing inventory turning over so fast, Clay haskicked off talks with "two or three others" for build-to-suits onthe 13-acre balance. Clay, who's built nearly 700,000 sf on 125acres in the northwest submarket, says demand is such that specproduct won't be necessary.