With that play comes $50 million in two class-A office spec projects in the city's bustling northwest corridor. Dirt's flying simultaneously on a two-building, 175,000-sf development at Braker Point and a one-building project, totaling 150,000 sf, at Research Boulevard and Riata Trace Parkway. They are McShane's first office projects in Austin and they are coming on the heels of industrial developments that are under way at the 72-acre Commerce Center South and 52-acre Tuscany at Walnut Creek.
McShane already has 275,000 sf out of the ground at Commerce Center and is planning to break ground within three months on another 160,000 sf, Hunter Barrier, senior vice president of McShane's Southern Division, tells GlobeSt.com. The projects, all of which deliver in August, are being done with partner, PAC Trust, which is based in Portland, OR, and represent that entity's inroads into Austin's hot market.
"We're very bullish on Austin right now," says Barrier. And, he says, the northwest market in particular so that's where McShane went looking when it wanted to buy land. "The Greater Arboretum area is really the Downtown of suburban Austin," says Barrier. The Braker Point dual office buildings are located on 12 acres at the intersection of Braker Lane and N. MoPac Expressway. Riata Gateway is being built on eight acres at the Research Boulevard-Riata Trace Parkway intersection.
Cadence McShane Corp. is the general contractor for all company projects, but that's not the case with the rest of the crew. Susman Tisdale Gayle has designed the Riata Gateway, with TBG Partners as the landscape architect. Braker Point is the design of Graeber, Simmons & Cowan and Richardson Verdoorn, the landscape architect. All are Austin based.
Since the early 1990s, McShane's Austin office has been a behind-the-scenes player, focusing more on investment. The market has caused the strategy to change, says Barrier, whose company presently is scouring the city for more opportunities. But, says Barrier, Austin isn't McShane's only focus; the company also is exploring office development opportunities in Atlanta, Denver and Southern California to expand beyond its four traditional markets, which also include Phoenix, Houston and its homeport. McShane's strategy is to develop, stabilize and sell, oftentimes to a large institutional buyer. That most likely will be the way the Austin projects evolve, he says.
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