Mercedes-Benz to build distribution center, training facility in Grapevine

Mercedes-Benz USA will build a regional parts distribution center and training facility on land north of the Grapevine Mills mall, the city announced Friday.

The facility will be located on 31 acres that are part of a 185-acre property purchased by the city of Grapevine from Rafael Palmeiro, the former baseball player, who had planned a mixed-use development that was never built. The facility, located along Lakeside Parkway at Enterprise Road, is expected to open in 2017.

“The city is pleased to welcome a major international corporate presence to the Grapevine family and Mercedes-Benz, USA, is a true reflection of the high-end corporate caliber that Grapevine, Texas, attracts,” Mayor William D. Tate said in a news release. “Between both Mercedes-Benz, USA, and Kubota Tractor Corporation Headquarters, the community will benefit from hundreds of new jobs.”

The Mercedes complex will be a neighbor to Kubota Tractor, which broke ground on Oct. 20 for its new $50 million corporate headquarters. That three-story office building will have approximately 125,000 square feet, plus a 68,000-square-foot research and development facility.

The news comes two days after the The Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center announced it will add 300 guest rooms and 86,000 square feet of meeting space in a $120 million expansion to begin this year.

The Grapevine City Council has been in negotiations with Mercedes-Benz for many months, with City Manager Bruno Rumbelow getting approval last year at a council meeting to approve the sale of approximately 31.211 acres and negotiate with the company.

The project will involve two facilities: a regional parts distribution center designed to support the sales and distribution of spare parts to customers and dealers, and a learning and performance center.

The learning and performance center is relocating from Houston and is planned to be a high-end technical facility to accommodate ongoing training of Mercedes-Benz dealership technicians from around the Southwest region.

Once fully operational, the training facility will be staffed with approximately 50 full-time employees with the ability to train 150 to 200 technicians per week.

The parts distribution center will be approximately 254,000 square feet, and the learning and performance center approximately 59,000 square feet.

The developer is Seefried Industrial Properties in partnership with a long-time European capital partner (FRAPAG). Seefried has experience in the city, having been the original developer of the Northfield project along Dallas Road.

Mercedes-Benz has executed a development agreement with Seefried Properties and will purchase the project upon completion. Design is underway and will be submitted for permitting in February. The initial site work will start this month with a full construction start in March.

The target completion and occupancy date is January 2017, with full operations commencing on March 1, 2017.

“The new MBUSA training facility provides a strategic location nationally and in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and is yet another example of international corporate interest in Grapevine and the Metroplex,” Grapevine Economic Development Director Bob Farley, said in a news release. “We are thrilled to have MBUSA join our community and our corporate footprint.”

This story was originally published January 22, 2016 at 3:37 PM with the headline "Mercedes-Benz to build distribution center, training facility in Grapevine."