In back-to-back acquisitions, SkyWalker Property Partners has added two commercial properties to the portfolio of its Cash Flow Fever Fund, one of which was an off-market purchase of a class A office building in downtown Arlington.
SkyWalker’s off-market play has scooped up the 10,029 square foot Duncan Office Building at 501 E. Border St. in the Commerce Center. The asset is one of three in the complex, the longtime home of the Arlington Chamber of Commerce.
“Our timing was right,” sid Gary Walker, president of locally based SkyWalker Property Partners and fund manager. “I’ve consistently been a strong advocate of downtown Arlington’s growth so this is quite an honor to own a building developed by the late Bob Duncan, one of the city’s greatest civic leaders.”
The buyer of record is Making Our Way Downtown LLC, with Walker negotiating the acquisition.
Travis English of Duncan Holdings, grandson of the developer, negotiated on the family’s behalf.
The Duncan building, featuring underground parking, is fully leased to the nonprofit Alliance for Children, Renaissance Wealth Management and the Parks, Huffman, McVay, Shepard & Wells law firm. It is situated three blocks from SkyWalker’s Vandergriff mixed-use complex and minutes from AT&T Stadium, Globe Life Park, Texas Live and Arlington Convention Center.
The Commerce Center was developed in 2001 by Bob Duncan and the late Jerry Jordan, ardent believers in downtown Arlington’s intrinsic value to the metroplex. Their vision was to provide a permanent home for the chamber, with each developing an office building to create a small business park in the downtown corridor. According to family lore, Duncan had attended an elementary school that stood on the site. The complex’s third structure, the Jordan building, recently was sold to Cliff Myscoskie, a well-known local leader and noted landscape architect.
“We were happy to find an owner like Gary who’s been invested in Arlington for a long time and believes in the city like our family does,” English says. “It was not a decision we rushed into lightly because it was so important to my grandfather, but we want to focus on other opportunities.”
The second acquisition is the 58,377 square foot High Plaza Shopping Center at 2430 S. High St. in Longview. The 94%-leased asset is situated at the kissing point of Estes Parkway, South Moberly Avenue and High Street. It is less than a quarter-mile from LeTourneau University, a 162-acre private non-denominational Christian institution. It is ranked 12th in the nation as a best value school, 17 as one of the best colleges for veterans and 28 in the Regional Universities West performance category by U.S. News & World Report.
High Plaza is the only retail center in southeast Longview. “Demographically, the tenant profile and the neighborhood fit really well together,” said Clint Holland, SkyWalker’s acquisitions director.
SkyWalker has earmarked $300,000 for roof and parking lot repairs plus cosmetic upgrades. “It’s a classic opportunity for our motto, ‘Making Places Better,'” Holland says. “We’re not trying to change tenants. We want them to re-up, stay longer and continue to serve the community.”
High Plaza’s average tenant has been in place at least 10 years. The anchor is Family Dollar, which occupies 8,640 sf or 14.8% of the retail space. Beer Wells of East Texas will lease and manage the neighborhood center.
Jason Vitorino of Strive Commercial Real Estate Advisors represented the seller, High Plaza Center Inc., heirs of a Dallas/Fort Worth-based partnership that had owned the center for three decades. Holland and Walker handled negotiations for the buyer of record, The Tide is High Plaza LLC. Corey Doyle of Affiliated Bank in Arlington arranged the financing.
“We’ve had some success finding risk-adjusted cash flow in tertiary markets,” Holland says, adding Cash Flow Fever still has capital to deploy on acquisitions.