The DBJ Goes Behind the Deal on the Raytheon Site Redevelopment

Pictured: YP’s Carter T. Crow, developers Brian Flaherty and Eric Langford, and YP’s Byron McCoy. Not pictured: YP’s Trae Anderson

The Dallas Business Journal dug a little deeper behind the sale of the former Raytheon campus with this news report.

Here’s our news release:

Construction starts this summer on the Jupiter Miller Business Center, which will take the place of the former Raytheon campus on Jupiter Road in Garland. It was a deal that took months to complete complicated by various issues including two sellers – one of which is the iconic defense contractor. On the horizon: an 800,000-square-foot two-building industrial distribution center.

The forward-looking buyers, a partnership of Dallas-based developers Langford Property Co.’s Eric Langford and Flaherty Development’s Brian Flaherty, plan to build an industrial development covering 40 acres of the 70-acre property. Delivery is scheduled for 2018. The developers have hired Bob Moore Construction as the general contractor for the project.

Younger Partners’ Carter Crow, Byron McCoy, and Trae Anderson represented one of the sellers, Lexington, in the transaction. JLL’s Craig Phelps and Brad Selner represented the other seller, Raytheon.

The deal had many moving parts that required expertise to make the transaction occur, Langford says. “The existing facilities had both office and industrial people working together,” he says. “It was built on an old airport site, so that added to some issues.”

The property included eight buildings. One building had two separate owners, but shared a common wall and roof.  So, it couldn’t be sold by one without the other, McCoy says.  “There’s no question this deal had a lot of hair on it” Langford adds. “But, for an adaptive re-use, taking an office/manufacturing park that has outlived its usefulness and repurposing it into modern industrial is something Brian and I have done and we felt good about breathing new life into this site.”

“Land is becoming more valuable than the improvements; even after remediation, demolition, etc., these close-in, urban sites are becoming few and far between in the Dallas area,” Langford says.

North Dallas is becoming barren of large, industrial tracts that are desired by developers building manufacturing/distribution facilities, Flaherty adds.

“This location is great because of the good employment base, available hotel rooms, restaurants, daycare facilities, and all the things employees need. For the user, there are likely suppliers nearby, too,” he says.

The remediation challenges are not new to the development duo; they partnered on a project at 1111 W. Bardin Rd in Arlington that repurposed the former National Semiconductor property. That project will have 1.25 million square feet across three buildings. It had similar issues to the Raytheon site. For Langford and Flaherty, the clean-up and redevelopment is a niche they’ve comfortably navigated together. Flaherty also redeveloped the former Forum 303 (later Festival Marketplace) at Texas 360 and Pioneer Parkway in Arlington. He demolished the shopping center and turned it into the Pioneer 360 Business Center filled with warehouse and distribution facilities before flipping it to an institutional buyer.

Both the Arlington and Garland projects will be higher-finish industrial buildings that may be ideal for manufacturers because they will be designed to be more flexible state-of-the-art buildings, especially compared to nearby facilities are that are 20 years old or older.

The construction process includes asbestos abatement before the buildings can be demolished. Once remediation is done, construction will start this summer. The first part of the project along Jupiter Road will feature 800,000 square feet of modern manufacturing and distribution buildings on 40 acres of the 70-acre property, Langford says. The project should be completed by early summer 2018. More development along the property is likely to follow as the market demands it, he says.

“The infill location should appeal to users looking for a ready workforce,” McCoy says.

“Eric and Brian have the formula down for redevelopment projects like this,” says Crow. “They can overcome obstacles – and even anticipate them – to create fabulous urban infill projects and take obsolete sites and transform them into state-of-the-art redevelopment gems.”

“Dallas has continued to fill with industrial users and the most popular areas like Garland, Great Southwest, and Carrollton are all fairly full,” Flaherty says. “There’s space in South Dallas, but

companies also want to be close to the Metroplex’s great transportation network, a nearby labor base, and access to a DART line. Labor is huge component of a business.”