CARROLLTON, TEXAS — Lee & Associates has negotiated a 125,000-square-foot, full-building industrial lease at 2020 McDaniel Drive in the northern Dallas suburb of Carrollton. According to commercialcafé.com, the property was built on seven acres in 1981. Nathan Denton of Lee & Associates represented the tenant, BuzzBallz, a locally based provider of premixed alcoholic beverages, in the lease negotiations. Jeff Thornton of Duke Realty represented the landlord, Texas Dugan LP.
NEW YORK CITY — TPG Architecture has signed a 40,431-square-foot office lease renewal at 132 West 31st Street in Midtown Manhattan’s Penn Plaza district. The lease term is seven years. The property was built in the 1920s and recently renovated to feature an upgraded lobby, meeting rooms and elevators, as well as new food and beverage concepts. Mitchell Konsker, Matthew Astrachan, Kyle Young and Thomas Swartz of JLL represented the landlord, Vanbarton Group, in the lease negotiations. CBRE’s Mark Ravesloot, Michael Monahan and William Iacovelli represented the tenant.
With each year that passes in the current cycle, industrial real estate, along with multifamily, becomes more deeply ingrained as a darling asset class among commercial developers, lenders and investors. For all the talk about Americans being social creatures, there remains a massive contingent of the population that, when it comes to shopping, overwhelmingly prefers the convenience and relative anonymity of e-commerce. What started out as pandemic-related justifications for buying goods online as opposed to in-person has given way to a full-fledged, tacit acknowledgement of a trend that was already in place prior to February 2020. As such, demand for facilities — not just traditional, pure-play industrial spaces — that can function as e-commerce fulfillment and distribution centers continues to skyrocket. This trend is even more pronounced in markets with surging populations like those of major Texas cities. Industrial brokers are the ones who see it all. These professionals talk to tenants about acute real estate needs that are critical to serving customers without accruing exorbitant transit costs. Brokers work with developers who must build and price their spaces in accordance with their own escalating cost structures for land and construction. The deals that industrial brokers execute form the backbone …
JACINTO CITY, TEXAS — NAI Partners has negotiated a 91,000-square-foot industrial lease renewal at 4800 Fidelity St. in Jacinto City, located on the eastern outskirts of Houston. Chris Caudill of NAI Partners represented the tenant, PK Industrial LLC, which provides coating and fireproofing services for various manufacturers, in the lease negotiations. Eric Hughes of Centermark Commercial Real Estate represented the undisclosed landlord.
HOUSTON — Eleox, a joint venture between six energy trading companies, has signed a 4,300-square-foot office lease at Heights Clock Tower in Houston. The building was originally constructed in 1894 and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Bryant Lach of JLL represented the tenant in the lease negotiations. Russell Hodges and Jenny Mueller of CBRE represented the landlord, Radom Capital.
CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS — Whataburger, a Corpus Christi-based fast food burger chain, is opening its first metro Atlanta restaurants this year. The two locations will be situated at 705 Town Park Lane NW in Kennesaw and 9766 GA-92 in Woodstock. At its Kennesaw location, Whataburger plans to hire 180 employees, and to employ more than 1,400 employees in the metro Atlanta area restaurants by the end of 2023. In 2023, other Whataburger locations will open around metro Atlanta including at 503 Lakeland Plaza in Cumming; SEQ Buford Drive and Exchange Drive in Buford; 3321 Lexington Road in Athens; 3201 Atlanta Highway in Athens; 100 Pottery Road in Commerce; and 15 Wallace Blvd. in Dawsonville. Whataburger currently has one Georgia restaurant in Thomasville. The burger chain has over 880 locations across 14 states.
NEW YORK CITY — Sigma Computing Inc., a provider of data analytics software, has signed a 15,500-square-foot office lease at Zero Irving, a 21-story building in Midtown Manhattan. The tenant will occupy space on the ninth floor of the for five years. Jeff Rodgers, Stephen Cisarik and Brent Ozarowski of Newmark represented Sigma Computing in the lease negotiations. JLL represented the landlord, a partnership between RAL Development and Junius Real Estate Partners.
STATESVILLE, N.C. — CBRE has brokered the sale-leaseback of a 416,300-square-foot manufacturing facility in Statesville. Nevada-based CAI Investments purchased the property for $30.3 million. Patrick Gildea, Trey Barry, Matt Smith, Grayson Hawkins and John Christenbury of CBRE represented the seller and tenant, Kewaunee Scientific Corp., in the sale-leaseback transaction. Kewaunee Scientific Corp. is a designer and manufacturer of laboratory, healthcare and technical furniture products. The Statesville building serves as Kewaunee Scientific’s primary manufacturing facility. Situated on 21.3 acres at 2700 W. Front St., the property is located within three miles of the Interstates 40 and 77 and about 41.6 miles north of Charlotte.
FORT WORTH, TEXAS — An undisclosed distribution user has signed a 376,000-square-foot industrial lease at North Quarter 35, a 645,000-square-foot development in Fort Worth’s Alliance Corridor. Owned by M2G Ventures, North Quarter 35 comprises four buildings in various stages of development. Seth Koschak, Forrest Cook and Brett Carlton of Stream Realty Partners, which also provides construction management services for the development, represented M2G Ventures in the lease negotiations. Mark Collins of Cushman & Wakefield represented the tenant.
FORT WORTH, TEXAS — Dallas-based brokerage firm Holt Lunsford Commercial has negotiated a 14,775-square-foot industrial lease renewal at 200 N. Vacek St. in Fort Worth. David Cason and Jake Neal with Holt Lunsford represented the tenant, Ambiance Textiles Inc., in the lease negotiations. The name and representative of the landlord were not disclosed.