The corporate decision is part personal and part business, AnneCoolidge Taylor, an 11-year top exec who five years ago opened WPCarey's London office. Taylor says the decision swung to Dallas,partly for its central US positioning. "You can travel anywhere inthe country for a one-day trip," she says. "More and more we werefinding our acquisitions people were stopping in Dallas."

The office was set up on the 13th floor of Building 200 at theCrescent in Uptown. For now, Taylor is soloing, but she's planningto add at least one assistant and let the "deal volume and numberof leads" drive the decision to add staff or rely on NYC resourcesfor her net-lease acquisitions focus, she tells GlobeSt.com. Inaddition to being a managing director, she's president of CorporateProperty Associates 15 Inc., a three-year-old, publicly held,non-traded REIT managed by WP Carey.

This year, WP Carey has closed about $100 million in Texas:U-Haul International Inc. of Phoenix, 15 locations for $58.9million; Huntsman Corp. in the Woodlands near Houston, $39.8million; and Grande Communications Networks Inc. of San Marcos, TX,$1.4 million. In all, WP Carey owns 8.1 million sf in Texas and 1.4million sf in Houston, the firm's largest concentration in itsglobal portfolio.