Industrial JV Jumpstarts 2M-SF Development

FLOWER MOUND, TX-In a first-time teaming, Cousins Properties Inc. and Seefried Properties Inc. are immediately starting construction on a 750,000-sf bulk warehouse on an 85-acre tract in Lakeside Ranch Business Park. The estimated $30-million spec project will deliver in March 2007.

Cousins’ two-year-old industrial division is undertaking its first development outside Atlanta since it was formed. The Atlanta-based joint venture intends to build 1.7 million sf in Lakeside, with Seefried’s development role extending to management and leasing of the finished product.

“We’ve been considering a Lakeside Ranch project for some time,” Ferdinand Seefried, the firm’s founder and president, says in a press release issued this morning. “This is a wonderful opportunity for two longstanding Atlanta companies to finally work together.”

The 226-acre Lakeside Ranch Business Park sits two miles north of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. Its proximity to the airport was one of key considerations for Cousins, Forrest Robinson, president of Cousins’ industrial division, says in the release.

Seefried’s man on the ground for the project, Bob Rice, wasn’t available for comment by press time, but the JV’s plan is a sign of the times in Dallas/Fort Worth. All major industrial developers are under way or planning boxes akin to the size of SoCal’s product for this year’s construction season, many working the turf in and around the airport and others zeroing in on South Dallas. The common link has been intermodal opportunities, whether it’s air or rail to supplement the region’s north-south and east-west freeway network. On average, developers are reporting construction costs for the boxes are now pushing $40 per sf, factoring out to roughly $30 million just for the JV’s first building.