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STREET TALK

By Sally Giddens |

Attention Homart Shoppers

It’s been just plain tough to find a positive story around here. But amid the rubble, there they are-healthy companies with cash in hand eyeing prime property and choice buildings like ranchers size up beef at a cattle auction. One of those financially fit firms active in Dallas these days is Homart Development Co.

Homart is not a newcomer in this market: the Chicago-based company’s first project was Seminary South shopping center in Fort Worth, built in 1959. Others followed, including such successes as Valley View in Dallas and Town East Mall in Mes-quite, and more recently, office projects-Xerox Centre in Las Colinas. a joint venture with Xerox Realty Corp., and Preston Park South in Piano.

Within the real estate community, Homart is well known for its 60 million square feet of development around the country. But in this city where babies gurgle “Trammell Crow” and “Lincoln Property,” Homart has not been a household name. Homart Chief Executive Officer Michael J. Gregoire says that low profile came by design. “It’s just been in the last several years when we’ve been in the office and mixed-use markets that we’ve become better known and people began to recognize our projects. The public usually has no idea who built the mall they are shopping in and it doesn’t matter to them.” Gregoire says.

Homart’s corporate family, however, with sister Coldwell Banker and parent Sears, Roebuck and Company, is well known. Specifically, Homart is the development arm of the Coldwell Banker Real Estate Group, which is a member of the Sears Financial Network, a publicly owned company.

During the past year, Homart has made an aggres-sive debut into the world of PR. One reason for the higher profile is Homart’s expansion into the more glamorous and ’. competitive office and mixed-use markets. But another ex-planation is tied to Homart’s financial position: Homart projects are self-financed, which means this developer doesn’t ! have to depend on traditional ; financing through banks, sav- ; ings and loans, insurance companies, or pension funds.

It’s hard to get an accurate comparison of Homart with the Crows and Vantages of the business- Gregoire admits that com-parisons by number of projects or square feet developed don’t put Homart in the Big Leagues. But when ownership position is [he gauge. Homart ranks near the top.

With its eye on the year 2000, Homart plans to open two new regional malls in the Dallas area. One in Lewisville, a joint ; venture with The Herring/Mar-athon Group called Vista Ridge, is scheduled for a 1987 ground-breaking. The Parks at Arlington is set to open in March 1988. Homart also plans to build three malls in the Houston area and one in San Antonio.

As for the office market. Gregoire says: ’’In the next year or so, we will selectively invest in some new opportunities in the Dallas market.” Daniel J. Hanesworlh, Homart first vice president, elaborates some on that cautious explanation. He says that while Homart is not immediately looking to add to the inventory of office product in Dallas, it is Outward Bound

Outward Bound

By the time The Wall Street Journal declared in January that Nashville, Tennessee, would be the boom town of the Nineties, it was old news to the Dallas real estate community. Dallas real estate brokers have been burning up the path between Dallas and Music City for more than a year now, ever since General Motors announced plans to build its Saturn plant nearby in Spring Hill. Smaller brokerage and development firms have gone on the road to kick up deals where there are deals to be done. By The Wall Street Journal’s estimates, at least twenty-five Texas developers are building in Nashville. Among the local firms who are outward bound: Albritton Development is mak-ing itself at home in Atlanta; The Staubach Company is also eye-ing Atlanta, along with other regional markets; Hank Dicker-son and Henry S. Miller both have a hand in Nashville; the. Lehndorff Group has big plans in the works in Washington, D,C. Says one real estate insider, “If you can get there in about an hour from D/FW, you can bet there are Dallas brokers and developers nosing around.”

Where Were You In ’82?

Ahh, remember the successful summer of 1982? Frenzied nights at Nostromo, magnums of Dom Pérignon gulped in celebration of this week’s deal, the roaring, rollicking boom days of the Dallas real estate market. If we had only known then what we know now. . .We asked some local real estate insiders to use their hindsight and think back to 1982 and those happier days. Would they handle business differently the second time around?



Jerry Fults, president, Fults & Associates, office brokerage and management company-“In 1982, I was doing the same thing I am now and I wouldn’t change one iota. We are right in the middle of the most dynamic part of the Dallas market-I’m talking about the office sector. Dallas is as dynamic as ever; it’s just in a trough. I know it sounds strange. but it couldn’t be better for us,” Fults says. Fults & Associates today is roughly ten times as large as it was in 1982. Fults says he hasn’t cut back, but rather continues to hire. The company started an industrial division in 1986.



John S. Crawford Jr., executive vice president, Henry S. Miller Co.-“I was at Henry S. Miller in 1982, and I’ve been back here for two years,” says John Crawford. He took a tour of duty with Bramalea and The Southland Corporation before his return. “Being in real estate is like being in your own business,” Crawford says. “I really can’t think of another opportunity that I would have gone after. This real estate market has had its ups and its downs, and now it is stabilizing. I think the next fifteen to twenty years will be golden.”



Ron Witten, president of M/PF Research-“In 1982, we had been in the business of monitoring the real estate market for twenty-one years,” Witten says. “Part of our job is to recommend when to build and to tell developers when there’s been too much. But in 1982 it was too early to see the overbuilding. Certainly by late 1984 and early 1985 we did, but three or four years in advance is not realistic. If we had seen it coming, maybe we’d have gotten out of research and into real estate speculation. Then we could have made enough money to retire on before this hit.”

Bill Lawley, vice chairman of The Swearingen Company-“It would have been nice if the developers who were building on tax benefits had been kept out of the market. They built a lot of junk that will never lease. But there was just so much money available that it was difficult to stop construction. The big guys made some mistakes, too.”

Hank Dickerson, Hank Dick-erson and Company–“You’re talking to a broker and most brokers enjoyed 1982. We wouldn’t have done a thing to change it. We didn’t have a crystal ball. We were dealing with comparable values then. Now we are dealing with real values and that’s tough.”

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