"We had upwards of eight to 10 highly qualified multifamily developers actively talking to us about the site," Steve Modory, Champion's managing partner, tells GlobeSt.com about a development that's been on the drawing boards nearly two years. Not only was Post Properties its award-winning partner on Addison Circle, another well-known mixed-use in North Dallas, but it was "willing to take down all of the land in one purchase," he adds. The prized land has 1,400 feet of frontage along the Dallas North Tollway at the Gaylord-Warren Parkway exit.

Modory and Barney Sinclair, partner in the firm, say Post Properties will take the lead for the land's development, possibly starting construction in late 2007 on 500 apartments and 50,000 sf of street-level retail. Champion's freeway-fronting 10.6-acre tract is earmarked for 400,000 sf to 600,000 sf of class AA mid- to high-rise office, four-star or full-service hotel, roughly 25,000 sf of service retail catering to the Sierra Frisco residents and possibly some residential from its award-winning team. "It would be a stretch to start office in 2007," Modory says. "It's not in our business plan."

But, Champion will begin work later this month or early January on $4 million of infrastructure for the site, Sinclair says. The make-ready plan is to be done by the time the toll road's extension opens in September 2007. Champion's land sits at the southern edge of where the old meets the new, with easy on-off access, and in a pocket with finished or under-construction projects by Hicks Holdings, Oakridge Investments Inc., Duke Realty Corp. and Hall Financial Group, which has been credited as being the first office developer to trek that far to the north in the late 1990s.

Champion and Post Properties are just starting preliminary design phases for the structures. Sierra Frisco's residential is envisioned as a high-density urban mix with four-story buildings. The balance of the 36 acres will be used for roads and expanding the city's eight-acre Central Park, which abuts the site.

Modory and Champion managing partner Jeff Swope worked with the Gaylord family of Oklahoma City about a decade ago when it was charting Frisco Bridges, a mixed-use vision that became reality with Chicago-based General Growth Properties Inc.'s 1.2-million-sf Stonebriar Centre as its anchor. "We didn't have the foresight to acquire any of it," Modory says. The return ticket is a joint venture set up in February with the landowner, Trike Properties of Irving, TX which acquired the dirt "three to five years ago," he explains. "We're just happy to be back."