By Steve Brown
A California-based property investor that already has holdings in North Texas is growing its footprint with another purchase.
Stanton Road Capital is buying another office building — this one near DFW International Airport.
The Esters 114 Business Center is near State Highway 114 on the north side of the airport.
With the purchase of the almost 177,000-square-foot office building, Stanton Road Capital now has a half-dozen properties in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
“Our thesis on Dallas has remained the same over the last five or six years,” said Stanton Road Capital’s founder and managing partner Timothy Ronan. “Now with COVID and some state governments that are less business-favorable, we expect to see more business relocations to Dallas.”
Stanton Road is ready for office moves.
The investor just completed a major renovation of its 1125 E. Campbell Road office campus in Richardson’s Telecom Corridor.
The building was vacant when Stanton Road bought it. It previously housed operations for AT&T.
Debt settlement firm DebtBlue has already leased more than 30,000 square feet of space in the Richardson building.
“We signed the lease during COVID,” Ronan said. “It might have been the largest deal in the second quarter of this year.”
The just-completed renovation of the building — constructed in 1996 — helped land the tenant and is aimed at bringing in more business.
“It’s pretty critical,” Ronan said. “Part of our business for all of our assets — especially in Dallas — has been adding amenities, upgrading common areas and adding certain features tenants put on their checklist.
“With COVID, break-out areas have become increasingly popular,” he said. “Early on we decided to create an outdoor space. That’s an amenity we think will resonate well with tenants.”
Ronan said the building refresh has caught the attention of potential tenants.
“We’ve seen some large users, even during COVID, look pretty seriously for 100,000 square feet or more,” he said. “Some are consolidations in the Metroplex, and we’ve seen a lot from out of state that are inbound.”
The Campbell Road building isn’t Stanton Road’s largest North Texas property. The firm owns the Trinity Towers on Stemmons Freeway north of downtown Dallas. And Stanton Road owns other office buildings in Far North Dallas, Las Colinas and Bedford.
Stanton Road owns almost 6 million square feet of real estate in five states.