August 30, 2021
by Spencer Brewer | Dallas Business Journal
Vanilla, single-use office space isn’t the future, John Hardaway said.
“Tenants value proximity to amenities, they value owners who listen to their needs and their wants,” he said. “Where they want to live, where they want to eat, how they work, that world is just kind of evolving.”
Hardaway is a partner at Triten Real Estate Partners, newly brought into the company to head its North Texas office and redevelopment projects. The Houston-based company has a growing local footprint, with redevelopment projects including Work/Shop, a 200,000 square foot mixed-use redevelopment project on Belt Line Road in Dallas, and Market Square Mall, a 300,000 square foot adaptive reuse mixed-use project.
In North Texas, Triten Real Estate Partners is focused on office, industrial and mixed-use projects, including acquisition and repositioning or ground-up development, Hardway said.
Triten Real Estate Partners' existing projects in North Texas follow their value-add philosophy, he said.
One project called The Commons is complete and in the process of leasing up, Hardaway said. By surrounding the property with updated, redeveloped retail, Triten added value to tenants, he said.
Work/Shop is expected to be complete by the fourth quarter 2022. Hardaway said that project took existing office space and added value by repositioning retail and redeveloping the office space to make it more mixed-use.
“We’re taking existing property that’s sleepy at best and we’re activating the project by infusing it with attractive food and beverage concepts that are walkable for the office tenancy,” he said.
Hardaway spoke with the Dallas Business Journal about Triten Real Estate Partners’ plans for North Texas.
What sectors of North Texas have the most opportunity for these value-add projects Triten has been taking on?
I believe that there are opportunities throughout DFW to do this. I would call them pockets within submarkets, and there’s a number of them. That’s why we think there’s a lot of legs to this investment thesis.
I think one of them is in the center city, right near 635. There are two projects on Belt Line. I think it’s really following the jobs and the employment, the educated workforce.
Places, where I’ve seen interesting opportunities, are in both suburban and urban, whether it’s downtown… or whether it’s in the suburbs. I think that office users and tenants throughout DFW generally want some of the same things. They want access to their… office space, they want to be in a dynamic, exciting environment and they want it to be able to play into how they work.
What are your thoughts on the Dallas market and how does that shape your strategy?
The thesis around DFW (is we view it) as a high growth market. We really view Dallas as pretty much the S&P 500 from a diversification across industries. (It’s) a little heavy on financial services, but outside of that, it’s a very diverse economy, which we think is beneficial. Given all the uncertainty going on in the world, whether it’s... geopolitical or pandemic related, Dallas continues to grow.
Right now, there are more jobs (which) continue to be added. In the last five years, Dallas has averaged over 100,000 new jobs. That’s a pretty good track record and we believe that’s going to continue, especially with additional corporate relocations.