By Candace Carlisle | Staff Writer
Dallas Business Journal
ccarlisle@bizjournals.com
Jones Lang LaSalle recently won the leasing assignment for the property formerly occupied by Nortel Networks - a seven-story, 282,000-square-foot office building at 1011 Galatyn Pkwy, just east of North Central Expressway in Richardson.
The property - which was acquired roughly a year ago by Dallas-based Champion Partners Ltd. and Boston-based Long Wharf Real Estate Partners - has undergone $2 million in renovations to its ground-level floor, creating a conference area and fitness center. The building is vacant.
The ownership group of 1011 Galatyn Pkwy has worked to improve the property for a large office tenant and prepare it for leasing, said Sandie Matejek, senior vice president at Jones Lang LaSalle.
"They have done a great job of cleaning up the building and opening it up for one big user, or a user larger than 125,000 square feet," Matejek said.
Matejek and Daryl Mullin of Jones Lang LaSalle are heading up the building's tenant search.
Dallas-based Peloton Commercial Real Estate manages the building, which was built in 2000.
1011 Galayn was originally designed for a large corporate user, with 4.4 parking spaces per 1,000 square feet of building space.
Historically, Richardson has been touted as the Telecom Corridor; but Jones Lang LaSalle plans to shop to the space to a broader array of tenants including financial services firms and insurance companies.
"We are diversifying in that submarket, and we are seeing diversification continue in tenants looking for space in Richardson," said Mullin, a senior vice president at Jones Lang LaSalle.
After the telecom industry bubble burst in the early 2000s, the City of Richardson began to market the city to diversify its corporate base, said John Jacobs, senior vice president of the Richardson Economic Development Partnership.
Richardson's largest employer is AT&T Inc., with about 4,300 employees.
Other corporate offices in the city include Bank of America and Blue Cross Blue Shield, which have about 3,500 and about 3,200 employees, respectively.
"These companies are tremendous users of technology and helped balance our employment base," Jacobs said. "Now, a decade later, we are primarily focused on technology companies, but we are looking for quality companies, whether they are users or creators of technology."
An estimated 1.5 million to 2 million square feet of office space is available in the immediate Richardson vicinity, according to real estate sources, including other portions of the former Nortel Networks campus and the former Fossil building.
Richardson has about 24 million square feet of total office space.
That vacant space could delay leasing activity at 1011 Galatyn, Jacobs said.
"That space will move - it's only a matter of time," he said. "It's next to UT Dallas, a DART station and other amenities."