7-story office building planned for Southlake Town Square

A seven-story multitenant office tower called Granite Place is planned for Southlake Town Square, the developers said Friday.

Plano-based Granite Properties said the 160,733-square-foot Class A office building will be on Texas 114, just east of North Carroll Boulevard and next to the Southlake Hilton Town Square. It could open in late 2016.

The property will have a parking garage, an on-site fitness center, meeting facilities and an upscale restaurant.

Frank Bliss, president of Cooper & Stebbins, Southlake Town Square’s developer, said that the office building has been in the works for more than a decade and that Granite’s “commitment to quality and long-term positioning of their projects is a perfect fit” for Southlake Town Square and the city.

David Cunningham, Granite’s development and construction director, said construction should begin this fall. Depending on leasing, the project could increase to about 500,000 square feet of office space.

Southlake needs multitenant space, and Granite Properties wants to take advantage of the market, Cunningham said. Tenants in Granite Properties buildings lease 9,000 square feet on average, Cunningham said. He said he has already been called by a tenant who leases 12,000 square feet at another property and wants to expand and discuss taking an entire floor in Granite Place.

“A number of decision-makers live in Southlake,” Cunningham said. “It’s part of our business plan. We look for opportunities to build in good markets. Southlake Town Square is well-leased but lacks available large blocks of office space.”

Southlake Town Square is a 1.4-million-square-foot upscale mixed-use development that started in 1996 and now has more than 485,000 square feet of shops, 90,000 square feet of restaurants, a full-service Hilton conference hotel and a Harkins movie theater. In addition, it has developed residential brownstones and about 250,000 square feet of loft office space, which is about 90 percent leased.

Granite is in the design process with Beck Architecture, and a contractor should be selected this summer.

Granite Properties has 11 developments in the Dallas market. The company has no Tarrant County-area properties but was involved in an office project in Fort Worth and a retail property in Mansfield nearly a decade ago.

Granite Properties is a privately held commercial real estate investment and management company with offices in Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Houston and Los Angeles. Since 1991, it has acquired or developed more than 24 million square feet of commercial real estate totaling $3.6 billion.

This story was originally published February 13, 2015 at 11:35 AM with the headline "7-story office building planned for Southlake Town Square."