10-Year Office Lease Jumpstarts 70,000-SF Project

FRISCO, TX-Dealmakers have capped a four-month round of bargaining with a 10-year lease for a headquarters tenant to jumpstart construction on a 70,000-sf office-and-retail building in Frisco Square.

DebtXS LP, a three-year-old financial services company on a growth fast-track, preleased the entire fourth floor and 80% of the third in the soon-to-rise building, Jeff Eckert, vice president for Dallas-based Trammell Crow Co., tells GlobeSt.com. The short story is “they were looking for a headquarters opportunity in a growing development,” he says about a 31,496-sf deal embedded with typical expansion rights. The office building will deliver in August 2006 at the corner of Frisco Square and Coleman boulevards, right across from the under-construction, 150,000-sf municipal complex.

Besides Eckert, the TCC team included David Reed, senior vice president, and Ashley Allen, associate. DebtXS negotiated directly with the team, which represents the Dallas owners, the Fairways Group Ltd.

Eckert says DebtXS will have about the same amount of office space when it moves from the Colonnade at 15301 Dallas Parkway in Dallas. In the past three years, the company has increased to 150 employees, 12,000 clients and a track record of settling more than $2.5 million per month of consumer debt.

The $500-million-plus plan for Frisco Square was revised earlier this year when Fairways took control of the stalled mixed-use development. In the summer, Jim Leslie, one of Fairways’ four managing partners, predicted that ground would break sometime in September on the next structure for the 147-acre town square, designed by renowned architect, David M. Swarz of Washington, DC. The DebtXS lease pulled the trigger on the project, cornering signatures about a week ago.

Eckert says there are talks in the works with enough tenants in the 1,000-sf to 4,000-sf category to fill the balance of the office space in the owners’ first building since they took control of the development. The Retail Connection in Dallas also is close to signing some deals for the project, he says. “Activity is very, very good,” he adds. Office space is quoted at $21.50 per sf to $22.50 per sf plus electric.