Austin is feeling the fallout from relocations, consolidations and dropouts. And, brokers are scrambling to find tenants to fill the empty space. Sheldon, like others, doesn't see the shakeup as terribly bad, viewing it instead as an opportunity to bring fresh tenants on board. Nonetheless, it's not an easy task. "I know there's not another block of high-tech manufacturing space this size in Austin," he says.
But there's more happening at the Domain than just finding a tenant to fill Solectron's shoes. The 235-acre, 2.1-million sf development has its eyes on developing a retail component along Burnet Road and adding up to 1.7 million sf of class-A office space heading north along Mopac Boulevard, GlobeSt.com has been told.
"The market will drive what we do out there," emphasizes Sheldon. The "we" are Endeavor and it's partners, Los Angeles-based JER Partners, New York City-based Blackstone Real Estate Advisors and Dallas-Based Trammell Crow Co., which acts as property manager. The development giants bought the Domain in December 1999 from IBM Corp. when it relocated across the street to a new campus. With the deed in hand, the new owners started reshaping the entire northwest Austin development.
Today's work is concentrating on Building 5, which has been skinned, gutted and molded into the team's high-tech vision for the project. Sheldon says $17 million has gone into the building that has been redesigned by Susman Tisdale Gayle in Austin. The project's general contractor is White Construction Co. and the landscape architect, the Broussard Group, both of Austin. This leg of the project wraps up in the spring.
According to Sheldon, the city now has in its hands a final plat of a master plan that calls for retail, more class-A office development and value office projects. There are even some roundtable discussions with hotel operators and fitness groups while plans are being made to expand the existing sports component. Most of what will be done, he says, will definitely be high-tech, a reality being driven by the super-powerful infrastructure put in place by IBM, which still leases 1.1 million sf in the Domain.
Sheldon says there's no timeframe to complete the project hanging over the developers' heads. It's being looked upon more as an evolution. "It's going to be an Arboretum one day," he confidently says. "It's a huge undertaking and we just got started."
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