By Candace Carlisle
National debt service firm DebtBlue plans to relocate its Texas headquarters and triple its corporate footprint in the Dallas area.
The new office space is expected to help DebtBlue, a national financial services debt settlement firm, as it recruits new employees to help aid in the expansion of its business. The company signed an office lease totaling 30,291 square feet at 1125 E. Campbell Road in Richardson, Texas, in a deal that is more than three times the size of its current North Texas headquarters in Addison. This part of the region was chosen based on a labor study of the firm’s target employee demographic, according to the firm.
DebtBlue and its current employees are excited to make the move to the Richardson area this fall, said Jeremy Hillin, the company’s chief executive officer.
“The state-of-the-art building, amenities and location will help attract and retain [employees] who are centrally located to this area,” Hillin said in a statement. “This relocation will be a key milestone to the future of DebtBlue.”
Currently, DebtBlue has 95 employees with plans to double that by this time next year, a Cushman & Wakefield spokeswoman said in an email to CoStar News. Within three years, the debt services firm is targeting to employ roughly 250 employees, she said.
The addition of DebtBlue to Richardson’s business is part of a larger trend for the city once known for its heavy concentration of telecommunication companies.
Two decades ago, about 85% of companies looking at Richardson, located about 13 miles north of downtown Dallas, were tied to the telecom industry, giving the area some weight behind the city trademarking the words, “Telecom Corridor,” for the 5.5-mile stretch of the city’s portion of North Central Expressway. But in recent years, Richardson has transformed into a more diversified economy with the addition of State Farm Insurance’s multi-building regional campus and financial services firms.
DebtBlue’s deal marks the first office tenant to sign a lease at the building in the past year, according to CoStar data. The building, once housing telecom giant AT&T, was acquired more than a year ago by Los Angeles-based Stanton Road Capital LLC.
In the April 2019 acquisition, the real estate investment firm planned a complete reboot of the 100% vacant office building in a multimillion-dollar upgrade to attract new kinds of companies to the area.
Tim Ronan Jr., founder and managing partner of Stanton Road Capital, said DebtBlue fits the profile of the type of tenant the real estate investment firm had hoped to attract after investing in the property with upgrades meant to lure “forward-thinking and growing firms.”
Those building upgrades in Richardson include a new structured parking garage to increase its parking ratio, a new fitness center with a 60-person training room, a grab-and-go eatery, a new lobby and an outdoor space with terrace overlooking the adjacent creek. The renovation is expected to be completed soon.
Ryan Hoopes, a director in Cushman & Wakefield’s Dallas office, said in representing DebtBlue in its real estate search they needed a place to help support their short and long-term growth needs and to help make them competitive in hiring talent.
About 58% of the population of the Richardson office market has a bachelor’s degree or higher, making it a community with a “highly talented labor force,” according to CoStar’s market analytics team. Richardson is also located along the light rail system in North Texas.
For the Record
Hoopes of Cushman & Wakefield represented the tenant in the lease. Clint Madison and John Fancher of Cushman & Wakefield represented the landlord, Stanton Road Capital.
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