A commercial real estate development and management company with a more than $5 billion portfolio has added a Dallas regional office.
St. John Properties, Inc., founded in Baltimore in 1971 by Edward St. John, has its sights set on acquiring land holdings to develop ground-up Class A commercial office, retail and flex and research and development buildings, focused on Collin and Denton counties.
North Texas’ sustained population growth, diversity of industries and talent-rich labor pool were critical points in St. John’s decision to launch in the region, according to Raphael Alterman, who has been tapped to lead the local office.
“Based on our sustained success in other markets around the country, we are confident that the unique characteristics of our signature flex product will satisfy the real estate requirements of varied end-users and out-perform what is currently available,” said Alterman. “Our initial step is to identify and acquire suitable land holdings for our signature flex/R&D, office, and retail buildings, as well as to establish relationships with key brokerage and business professionals to support our long-term development plans.”
Its definition of flex/R&D, a signature product for the firm, translates to single-story part-office, part-industrial buildings divided into bays. Tenants for this space can include companies in spaces such as tech, light manufacturing and distribution.
Alterman noted the firm is open to joint venture partnerships with local development groups as it looks to hit the ground running in the area.
St. John, which operates 15 offices in 11 states, broke ground speculatively on close to 1 million square feet of commercial space across the U.S. during the last four years.
The Dallas office marks St. John’s second in the state. It previously opened a hub in Austin in 2022 and has three sites in the Austin area under development totaling over 600,000 square feet.
That includes a 50-acre parcel in Leander earmarked for an eight-building community with flex/R&D and retail space and pad sites.
It also has a 35-acre business community near the border of Georgetown and Round Rock, in addition to an office building underway within Leander’s Northline mixed-use project.
St. John president and CEO Lawrence Maykrantz said the success of its Austin regional office was a key factor in its expansion into Dallas.
“Although we view Dallas as a completely different submarket with unique characteristics, we believe we can leverage certain operational efficiencies with the opening of a second Texas regional office,” Maykrantz said.
St. John is officing at Legacy Tower, located at 7250 Dallas Parkway in Plano.
