Cresa Connection: Tollway Corridor - February 2022

Please find February's edition of my monthly update on the North Dallas-Plano-Frisco office market detailing the latest office tenant and building news as well as lease transactions recently signed. 

If you have an office decision to make, please contact me for help with your real estate needs.

Market News

A flood of foreign capital made DFW one of the top markets in the nation for offshore property investors in 2021. Foreign buyers snapped up more than $3 billion in DFW investment properties in 2021, which represents the fifth highest total in the nation. DFW ranked behind Boston, Atlanta, Manhattan and Phoenix as the metro areas with the most purchases by cross-border buyers. DFW foreign property investment more than doubled last year compared with 2020 totals. Acquisitions by cross-border investors totaled $70.8 billion for 2021, which was up 92% from the pace set in 2020. Cross-border investment closed out 2021 with an 8.5% share of the total market for commercial real estate investment in the U.S. The biggest share of foreign investment in U.S. properties last year came from Canadian and Asian investors. Singapore-based GIC was the largest individual cross-border investor in nation-wide property last year with more than $9 billion in purchases. GIC was a partner in the recent $822 million purchase of 27 hotels from DFW’s Newcrestimage. Offshore investors favored two U.S. property types – industrial and apartments. The industrial sector captured 34% while the apartment sector captured 30% of all cross-border investment for the year.

Dallas-based developer Cawley Partners is planning three, Class “AA” high-rise office towers at the Grandscape mixed-use development along State Highway 121 in The Colony. The office development is being called Work Grandscape. Grandscape, which is anchored by Nebraska Furniture Mart, is becoming one of the largest and most unique mixed-use developments in the nation with its retail (NFM, Scheels), entertainment (Andretti Indoor Karting, Puttery, Grandscape Wheel, Jurassic World exhibition, The Lawn and Stage at Grandscape) and restaurant (Lava Cantina, Rock & Brews, Hard Eight BBQ, P.F. Chang’s) venues. The addition of more office projects will transition the development into a true live-work-play environment. The three office towers are planned for 500,000 square feet each with 23 stories (Phase I), 18 stories (Phase II) and 18 stories (Phase III). The office buildings will feature 30,000 square foot floorplates, 4.0/1,000 SF structured parking, sky-level balconies, conference facilities, collaborative tenant lounges, fitness centers and coffee bars. Cawley is moving forward with full architectural design on the first of the three towers and needs between 50,000 and 100,000 square feet of pre-leasing before it will break ground on the development. Rental rates are expected to be in the mid-to-high $30.00/NNN range. Here is a virtual tour of the walkable retail experience at Grandscape for tenants to utilize adjacent to the office buildings.

Grandscape (Source: Cawley Partners)

Northwest Hardwoods, a hardwood lumber manufacturer, is relocating its headquarters from Tacoma, Washington, to Hall Park (2600 Network Boulevard) in Frisco. The move is focused on the manufacturer’s corporate and functional teams. The company has executed a 23,000 square foot lease at Hall Park and plans to take occupancy of their new space on the 6th floor this spring.

Dallas-based co-working firm Common Desk, which started in 2012 by offering desks for rent in Deep Ellum, has been sold to co-working giant WeWork. Both shared space providers have multiple locations in the Legacy and Frisco markets. WeWork has announced that Common Desk’s 23 locations in Texas and North Carolina will be rebranded as “Common Desk, a WeWork Company.” It marks WeWork’s first acquisition as a public company. The company went public in October 2019 after controversy erupted over former CEO and founder Adam Neumann, who left under pressure from the company’s board of directors amid public disclosures about his bad behavior and drug use. In its most recent financial disclosure, WeWork reported $164 million in gross desk sales for the 4th quarter of 2021. WeWork’s portfolio includes 756 locations and 590,000 physical memberships in 38 countries. Common Desk currently serves 4,000 customers in 13 cities. Common Desk’s most recent expansion was to Hall Park in Frisco where the company took over fellow co-working operator Serendipity Labs’ space on the first two floors at 3201 Dallas Parkway.

Common Desk (Source: Dallas Morning News)

Frisco’s Hall Park is well underway with construction on the next iteration of Hall Park, which will being with a $500 million mixed-use project along Warren Parkway as phase one of the redevelopment master plan. The Tower at Hall Park will consist of a 16-story, 386,000 square foot office tower with 28,000 square foot floorplates and will feature 4.0/1,000 SF parking, outdoor terraces on each floor, corporate lounge, fitness center, meeting spaces to accommodate up to 238 people, two outdoor rooftop amenity decks, ground-floor restaurants and retail overlooking a park and an adjacent 154-room hotel and 60 corporate extended-stay suites. The Tower at Hall Park is projected to deliver in Fall 2023 and is currently marketing space at $42.00-44.00/SF, NNN ($15.00/SF). Phase one of the redevelopment will also include a 10,000 SF food hall attached to a 214-unit residential high-rise building with units available for lease. The park, which will be situated between The Tower at Hall Park and the residential high-rise building, will feature technology pods and zones for outdoor work space, event lawn, performance pavilion, children’s play area, dog park, water features, pickleball courts and other programming. For more information on the development, see the property brochure.

The Tower at Hall Park (Source: CoStar)

Reata Pharmaceuticals, which signed a 327,000 square foot office lease in 2019 for a build-to-suit headquarters at the southern entrance of Legacy West, is now marketing their entire space for sublease without ever having occupied their space. Reata’s 21-story, Class “AA” build-to-suit headquarters tower at 6100 Legacy Drive delivered in shell condition in the 4th quarter of 2021. Reata is offering subtenants a full tenant improvement package due to the building’s shell condition and is willing to break up the space for as small as 100,000 square feet.

6100 Legacy Drive (Source: CoStar)

The Parkwood, a boutique, 240,000 square foot Class “A” two-building office campus being developed by Dallas-based Cawley Partners along the west side of Parkwood Boulevard and just south of Windhaven Parkway in west Plano, is nearing completion of its first building (Phase I). Phase I will be 100% leased at the time of delivery this summer.

The Parkwood - Phase I (Source: CoStar)

Phase II of The Parkwood, which currently has no executed leases and has not yet broken ground, is being marketed to include a courtyard with outdoor gathering space, pickleball courts, conference center, grab n’ go food service, rooftop lounge and access to the fitness center in building one. Cawley Partners is currently working with one prospective tenant who has a July 2024 lease commencement date. Cawley can deliver the 120,000 square foot building earlier than summer 2024, but will need 18 months timing from lease execution date in order to deliver the building and shell space. Cawley is currently marketing space at $35.00/SF, NNN ($12.00/SF).

The Parkwood - Phase II (Source: CoStar)

California-based Trellix, a new $1.7 billion cybersecurity firm created from the merger of McAfee Enterprise and FireEye Security Holdings, has leased the remaining 85,000 square feet of office space in Legacy West’s newest office delivery – “Block H” – which is located at the southwest corner of Windrose Drive and Headquarters Drive directly across from Legacy West’s Food Hall. Block H, which delivered in 2020, is a 6-story, 125,000 square foot Class “AA” office-over-retail product that includes 25,000 square feet of Legacy West’s most prominent ground floor retail tenants, including Gucci, Tory Burch and Louis Vuitton. Block H was marketing the remaining vacant space at $37.00/SF, NNN ($15.62/SF) at the time of lease-up to Trellix. Dallas-based law firm Haynes & Boone, LLP, is the only other office tenant in the building and occupies the entire 2nd floor. The new organization of Trellix will house the employees and assets of its combined existing operations in Plano. The overall presence in the area will remain what it was prior to the McAfee Enterprise-FireEye merger. Trellix expects to take occupancy of its new space later this summer. McAfee has had a long presence in the Legacy area and recently sold its Preston Road office building to Austin-based investor Capital Commercial. Symphony Technology Group acquired and merged FireEye and McAfee into the new Trellix brand last year.

Legacy West Block H (Source: CoStar)

Dallas-based Cawley Partners has completed a $4 million capital improvement project at 5501 Headquarters Drive in Legacy, which was purchased by Cawley in December 2019 for $43,200,000 or $255/SF. The capital improvements included renovations to the building lobby and restrooms and the installation of a new fitness center with locker rooms and a grab n’ go food lounge. Cawley is marketing vacant space at $27.00/SF, NNN ($12.98/SF) and the building is currently 58% leased with Rent-A-Center occupying 98,649 square feet. Rent-A-Center had previously owner-occupied the building and negotiated a sale-leaseback transaction with Cawley in 2019.

5501 Headquarters Drive (Source: CoStar)

Plano-based home goods retailer At Home, which produced sales of $2 billion in 2021 from its 240 stores in 40 states, has announced that the company will relocate their office headquarters from SH-121 in Plano to Billingsley’s Cypress Waters development in Irving along LBJ Freeway. At Home will maintain its Plano warehouse attached to its current office headquarters. The new campus will represent a two-building project and include a design center with a mock store and photo and video studios. The company is growing at a rate of 25 stores this year after it was sold in July 2021 for $2.8 billion to private equity firm Hellman & Friedman. The home furnishings sector is a $200 billion per year business that was growing at a 2% to 4% clip a year before the pandemic and has since jumped to 6% to 9% growth during the stay-at-home economy the last two years.

At Home (Source: CoStar)

CEO Lee Bird joined the company in 2012 to reinvent the 30-year-old Garden Ridge brand with 58 tired locations into something new. Bird believes the company can become a 600-store chain and that it can grow faster as a private company. In 2020, its last full year as a public company, At Home reported its best sales growth in its history, with $1.7 billion in revenue and $77 million in net profit. The sale of the company last year triggered the vesting of most restricted shares and stock options held by executives. Bird’s shares were worth more than $90 million. Bird turned around and reinvested $10 million in At Home as part of an agreement with Hellman & Friedman. At Home expects its corporate staff to grow from its current 400-person headcount to 1,000 employees at its headquarters over the next decade.

At Home CEO, Lee Bird (Source: Dallas Morning News)

Peloton, which currently leases 133,750 square feet of office space in Plano’s Legacy Central mixed-use development at U.S. Highway 75 and Legacy Drive, announced plans to cut 2,800 jobs from its corporate workforce, which includes its New York City headquarters along with offices in Plano and Atlanta. The struggling fitness company also canceled a new factory under construction in Ohio that was to have employed 2,000 workers. Plano was Peloton’s first support center outside New York City, providing member support, sales, field operations and other corporate functions. The company initially leased 30,000 square feet in 2018 and then added an additional 103,750 square feet in December 2020. Peloton had been a highflier during the pandemic when lockdowns sent customers scrambling to buy its stationary bikes and attend virtual classes. With restrictions easing and many fitness junkies returning to in-person gyms, the company has faced an investor backlash and had to retool its operations.

The new office headquarters for the PGA of America is expected to deliver by mid-April 2022 with 135 employees occupying the building. The new facility has been designed to blend into the development’s two, 18-hole golf courses behind the office building. Roughly 70 employees who will work at the headquarters are golf professionals. The headquarters is part of the 660-acre, $520 million mixed-use project that is scheduled to be completed by spring 2023 and will include a 500-room Omni PGA Frisco Resort, golf-themed restaurants and retail stores. The PGA has already committed to hosting 26 championship golf tournaments within its first 12 years.

The 9-story, 149,578 square foot Addison Tower (renamed The Charter), which is located along Addison Road and just north of Keller Springs Road, has undergone $2.2 million in capital improvements, including a new fitness center with locker rooms, golf simulator, conference center with seating for 60 persons, renovated building lobby, common area corridors and restrooms, outdoor courtyard with tenant lounge area and putting green, and new exterior paint. The property exchanged hands in April 2021 when Dallas-based Dogwood Commercial took ownership after paying $15,000,000 or $101/SF for the 63% leased building. Dogwood is currently marketing vacant space at $23.00/SF + Electric.

The Charter (Source: CoStar)

1. Tenant: Dassault Systemes Americas
Building: 5700 Tennyson Parkway / Legacy Place East
Type: New Lease
Size: 5,242 SF
Term: 65 months
Free Rent: 5 months
Start Rate: $27.75/NNN
Bumps: $0.75/SF
TI: $50.00/SF

2. Tenant: Northwest Hardwoods
Building: 2600 Network Boulevard / Hall Park
Type: New Lease
Size: 23,000 SF
Term: 129 months
Free Rent: 9 months
Start Rate: $24.75/NNN
Bumps: $0.75/SF
TI: $50.00/SF

3. Tenant: PAM Cubed
Building: 5340 Legacy Drive / The Campus at Legacy
Type: New Lease
Size: 23,372 SF
Term: 70 months
Free Rent: 10 months
Start Rate: $22.50/NNN
Bumps: $0.50/SF
TI: Turnkey

4. Tenant: Biamp Systems
Building: 5830 Granite Parkway / Granite Park Five
Type: Sublease
Size: 8,975 SF
Term: 57 months
Free Rent: 0 months
Start Rate: $31.00/NNN
Bumps: $0.50/SF
TI: As Is

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I specialize in representing office tenants in the North Dallas/Plano/Frisco market. Please let me know if I can be of service with your real estate needs (relocation search, expansion, lease renewal negotiations, building/condo purchase, sublease, portfolio management).

Learn why Cresa only represents tenants/occupiers exclusively.

Tor Erickson | Senior Vice President

Cresa
5005 Lyndon B. Johnson Freeway, Suite 800
Dallas, TX 75244

469.323.5395
terickson@cresa.com
cresa.com/dallas