Commercial Property News

BNSF to Take More Land at Dallas Logistics Hub

April 19, 2007

The San Diego-based Allen Group and BNSF Railway Co. announced a deal this week to build an intermodal facility at the Dallas Logistics Hub. Under the terms of the agreement, BNSF will buy between 387 and 530 acres at the hub, a 6,000-acre master planned logistics park in southern Dallas County.

“They now have the rights to purchase that land to build an intermodal facility,” Jon Cross, The Allen Group’s director of marketing, told CPN today. “They have a due diligence period to evaluate and study that area and see if it’s efficient (for an intermodal facility). We feel pretty confident that it will be the perfect location for them.”

The site BNSF may take fronts 8,000 feet of track in the city of Dallas and is part of 2½ miles of BNSF track within the Dallas Logistics Hub. If BNSF constructs an intermodal facility there, Cross said, the hub would be the first logistics park in North America to house two intermodal facilities.

CPN reported last November that BNSF was in talks with The Allen Group to acquire several hundred acres within the logistics hub, which will serve as an inland port for distributing goods to the central and eastern United States, and has up to 60 million square feet of development potential. Last Friday, about 1,000 people attended the park’s grand opening ceremony.

The Allen Group announced at the event that construction will begin in June on two speculative industrial buildings for delivery by the end of the year. The two buildings will total 640,000 and 210,000 square feet. “Our hope is to go after that user looking for a 200,000- or 600,000-square-foot deal, but we can also set it up for multiple users,” Cross said.

Cross said the company is also creating a cost calculator for the park’s Web site, that will allow potential users to analyze distribution cost savings from the park to any one of Dallas’ submarkets.

The master-plan for the hub includes business-class hotels, restaurants and single- and multi-family housing in addition to warehouse, distribution and light manufacturing facilities. In sum the property is expected to increase the tax bases of the municipalities of Dallas, Lancaster, Wilmer and Hutchins by $2.4 billion.

The Allen Group specializes in developing rail-served industrial parks and build-to-suit facilities, and currently has over 8,000 acres of land under development, including a BNSF intermodal logistics park in Kansas City.