Doug Agarwal, CEO of Capital Commercial Investments, called the office park at 5959 Las Colinas Boulevard a “1,000-year-old asset.” And a search for a tenant for the property has already begun.
The tenant, in the singular, has been the headquarters of Exxon Mobil since 1996, according to the JLL Dallas team hired to market the property. Their goal is to find a corporate mogul to take over and possibly reimagine the entire 300-acre site.
“It’s a great corporate campus on a great piece of land,” said JLL’s TD Briggs. “There’s a bunch of land, so I’d describe it as a blank canvas. What Capital Commercial is going to do is really make it the best mixed-use property and really add all these components to it.”
Planning is easier said than done. The idea is to find the golden ticket, a corporate tenant that will drive development windfalls across the property and attract affiliate tenants. Restaurants, parks, retail, homes – the possibilities are endless on one of Irvine’s last noteworthy undeveloped lots.
Exxon is still moving to its new headquarters in Houston. Briggs, Blake Shipley, Ashley Curry and Chris Wright are leading the lease on the property.
Capital Commercial and Agarwal snapped up the site last year, nearly a year after it was listed. Robb Buchanan of Capital Commercial said the firm hopes to redevelop the campus into a luxury master-planned community to attract another Fortune 500 company to DFW dallas morning paper.
JLL will conduct a national marketing search to attract the best tenants to the Las Colinas site, Briggs said, but did not rule out the possibility of a Dallas-based company.
“We’re going to be looking coast to coast. It’s likely going to be in town for consolidation or relocation,” Briggs said. “We’ll be working closely with tenant representatives and economic development types. We know the drill; we’re hunting.”
The team sees its competitors as Austin and Houston, not New York or San Francisco, Briggs said. He said the company is working with the Irvine Economic Development Corporation and the Texas Economic Development Corporation to provide potential tenants with as many business incentives as possible.
“We have to create the perfect environment for the next corporate campus. You just don’t see infill sites with this kind of infrastructure, scale and scope,” Briggs said. “Also, they’ll have the opportunity to start in a really nice place with a beautiful existing building that, frankly, you’d never build again today.”
Capital Commercial has assembled a roster of top-notch campuses in the Lone Star State, including American Airlines’ former headquarters south of DFW International Airport and JCPenney’s headquarters in Plano.
North Texas is home to more than 20 Fortune 500 companies, including Texas Instruments and AT&T. In Irvine, the Chamber of Commerce refers to the city as “the headquarters of the headquarters.” According to the Chamber’s website, Irvine is home to more than 1,000 corporate headquarters — more per capita than any other city in the United States.
