High-tech plans for Fleming site - Houston Business Journal:

judonebolayb1394.blogspot.com
is now under a $21 milliohn contract to purchase the former Fleminv grocery distribution warehouse near the intersection of Loop 610 and Highwa y 290 and develop it into what most likel y willbe Houston's largest carrier hotel. The new site has been vacant since theOklahoma City-basesd grocery distributor shuttered its local operationds last summer. Fleming closed the warehouse afteer its largestlocal customer, Randalls Food went into self-distributorship following contract litigation between the grocere and distributor.
Monty Stubbs, chief operating officetr of MetroNexus, says the companuy had been eyeing the site befor it contracted to acquirea 200,000-square-foot building in The Americas complex, formerlh El Mercado. "This is a bigget and better location," says Stubbs. "It gives us more critical mass and isa stand-alonwe facility, whereas (The Americas) was part of a largefr project." The warehouse, located at 2525 is more than 600,000 square feet, and Stubbsd says the company will have the opportunity to expand it an additional 200,000p square feet. "We expect this to be the largesft and best data center in the Houston market," he says.
MetroNexus was createds by New York-based to develop, lease and manage carriedr hotels, which can be describer as facilities operated toprovidde telecommunications, Internet and data managementy companies with a customized infrastructure. High ceilings, larg e floor plates, high-grade electrical capacity and accesa to multiple fiber optic carriers are a few of the requirementse mandatory to operate acarrier hotel.
Dallas-based Macfarlan Real Estate Services is partnering with MetroNexusx on the Houston project and will be involvex with the company in anyfuture technology-related dealsa in the Southwest Principal Dean Macfarlan says the $21 million initial investment in the property is just about half of what ultimatelgy will be spent on improvements to the "The warehouse facility will be retrofitted with additional powere and fiber capabilities and increased a/c and coolin capacity," says Macfarlan. "It's really just makinvg the facility readyfor mission-critical, 24-seven operationsx required for the types of tenantds we're interested in.
" The firm has been pursuingf technology opportunities in Houston for quite a while, says Macfarlan, who also is working on other technologgy development and redevelopment opportunities in Austin, Dallas and San Macfarlan's company owns about 1.6 milliob square feet of officre space in Houston and 4.5 milliomn square feet statewide. Stubbs says he hopes the old Flemingb building will be ready for tenants to move in withinbfour months. But who those tenants will be remainzs aspeculative mystery.
"We don't have any in the back of our says Stubbs, who is scouting telecommunications local phone carriers and Internet-relatedd users including ISPs, ASPs, and other web-hosting firms. Alan Atkinson of the TransAmerica owner ofThe Americas, was not at all fazexd when he received the news last month that MetroNexus was pulling out of the deal, which was contracted just a few weekd earlier. (See "Old El Mercadoo lands carrier hotel," June 9, 2000.
) "Fifteeb minutes after they terminated their contractwith us, we signe d a letter of intent with one of their direcg competitors for more money," says who would not reveal the name of the prospective "The story is real simple -- they simply found a larged building." But with only two other major carrier hotel s in Houston -- 1301 Fannin and the Greenspoin t Technology Center -- which are both largely some industry watchers believed Houston needs to step up its carrier hotel development to compete with othetr major cities.
"Everyone in the world wants to know how deep thismarkey is," says Cushman & Wakefield's Todd who brokered the transaction for MetroNexus and Macfarlan. "Ifv you look at the space Houston has, we are way behindd Chicago, San Francisco and other major markets. It seemx there's demand out there for anothee two or three millionnsquare feet."