Green Light Flashes for $50M-Plus Plan

FLOWER MOUND, TX-Dallas-based Direct Development, with two new high-powered teammates at its side, is ready to roll on a 450,000-sf project for 40 just-bought acres. The all-in development cost for the high-profile play exceeds $50 million.

David Watson, Direct Development’s managing principal, tells GlobeSt.com that site work got under way yesterday to set into motion a March 2007 delivery schedule for Robertson’s Creek. “That will be the quickest we’ve ever done a project,” he says, citing a nine-year development run that’s produced about three million sf of predominately national retail in Dallas/Fort Worth.

To add fuel to the plan, Watson and long-time partner Syd Hurley have fielded a pair of Dallas’ top names–Troy Aikman and Mike McCoy–as principals. Direct Development, though, is the general partner and controlling party for the emerging partnership, which is gaming out a development pipeline with two million sf in Dallas/Fort Worth, Austin and San Antonio.

“This is very much a strategic relationship for all of us,” Hurley says in a release announcing Aikman and McCoy’s investment. “Mike is a very smart guy who has been our partner in several deals over the past five years. The combined strength of Mike and Troy joining David, me and Jon Andrus, managing principal of our Austin office, better enables us to deliver a greater number of quality projects.”

Direct Development was up against several others jousting for the Robertson’s Creek land at the corner of Dixon Road and FM 2499, which represents the last large tract in the immediate area. A quartet of sellers, led by the Robertson family, handed off land for a straight-line extension of the city’s primary retail corridor, which started on Direct Development’s watch and then brought in others to brand the pocket with several million sf of national retail space. The developer’s newest site abuts the 350,000-sf Target Super Center.

Despite the amount of national retailers in place, Watson says Robertson’s Creek already is 75% preleased. “It’s starting to show there’s more of a market there than we thought,” he says.

J.C. Penney Co. will build a 103,000-sf store and Belk Department Stores is planning a 98,000-sf box. Don Bouvier, Direct Development’s senior vice president of development, has until July 1 to deliver the anchor pad sites so that the freestanding stores will be ready to open when the ribbon’s cut on the Robertson’s Creek shop space. The firm’s in-house team and the Retail Connection in Dallas are preleasing the project, which includes five pad sites. The roster to date includes a sporting goods store, Lane Bryant, Ulta Cosmetics, Kirkland’s, La Madeleine, Red Robin and Starbucks. Quotes for 5,000 sf or more go from $25 per sf to $35 per sf.