328-Acre La Frontera Lines Up New Brokerage Teams

ROUND ROCK, TX-There’s a new team working the La Frontera front. 35/45 La Frontera LP, the owner of the 328-acre mixed-use development, tapped United Commercial Realty to handle the retail sites and CB Richard Ellis to handle land sales for office building and commercial sites.

The development’s current listing broker Dan Listrom of First Regional Properties is taking a sabbatical after helping put La Frontera’s development ahead of schedule. Listrom, who could not be reached, will be a consulting broker on the project.

Dallas-based UCR has offices in Austin and San Antonio. Roger Anderson and Johnny Cram of the Austin office will lead the La Frontera work.

CB Richard Ellis, headquartered in Los Angeles, has offices throughout the United States and the world. The firm’s Austin land group, Phil Curran and David Blackbird, will lead the assignment with help from technology specialists Volney Campbell and Charles Dixon.

Bill Smalling, a 35/45 La Frontera partner, says he and the other partners are sorry to lose Listrom’s services. “He’s been very, very beneficial to the project,” Smalling tells GlobeSt.com. “Not only in getting lots sold, but also in the general name ID of the projects as well.”

La Frontera, situated in south Round Rock at Interstate 35 and FM 1325, broke ground in June 1999. Since then, it’s got one million sf of retail tenants, has a 300-room Marriott Hotel, two 200,000-sf office buildings, two apartment complexes (the 411-unit Enclave is finished and the 388-unit Lakeside under construction). Yet more work is to be done, especially when Texas 45, which runs through the development, opens in December.

“The land sales success of La Frontera has been nothing short of phenomenal over the last three years,” says Charles Heimsath of Capitol Market Research. “It’s been one of the most rapidly developing areas in the region.”

In the current market, UCR may have the easier assignment. Retail development is still showing strength in the Austin area while office occupancy and rents are down. The development has several retail pads yet to fill, Smalling says. Some front Texas 45 and Country Road 172 and others are within the development. “We interviewed several different sources and felt like they were motivated and prepared to go out and get the rest of this stuff sold,” he says.

He particularly likes UCR’s retail experience and its relationship with Chain Links Realty Advisors, the nation’s largest retail brokerage group. “There’s a very large interest in retail,” Smalling says. “There’s a whole lot of that going on.”

As for the office market, 35/45 is counting on CB Richard Ellis’ national scope to handle La Frontera’s site. “They just have a very good national exposure and we felt that we want people that specialize in office that also have contacts with a lot of national tenants are looking in the area,” Smalling says.

He says La Frontera is looking to snag build-to-suit projects that pop in Round Rock and take advantage of the interest financial services companies are showing in the area. “Office being what it is, you have to deal with it when you can.”

Curran of CB Richard Ellis agrees that build-to-suit is the way to go. “We don’t think there’s going to be a rush of spec office building buyers out there right now,” he tells GlobeSt.com. “But our company is very well-suited to get early warning when potential build-to-suits come to town because we’re global and national in scope and obviously that’s one of the avenues we’ll be exploring a lot.