Frisco City Hall set to open doors

by Sandra Zaragoza
Staff Writer Dallas Business Journal

Main Street in Frisco will start to bustle on July 3 when city employees show up to work at the new Frisco City Hall.

The building anchors Frisco Square -- a development with office, retail and apartments -- near the intersection of Main Street and Dallas Parkway.

Over the next few months, City Hall employees will be joined by construction crews ready to build retail, office and residential projects along Main Street, where Frisco Square and Pizza Hut Park soccer stadium sit alongside green pastures.

Dallas Business Journal - June 30, 2006

Main Street in Frisco will start to bustle on July 3 when city employees show up to work at the new Frisco City Hall.

The building anchors Frisco Square -- a development with office, retail and apartments -- near the intersection of Main Street and Dallas Parkway.

Over the next few months, City Hall employees will be joined by construction crews ready to build retail, office and residential projects along Main Street, where Frisco Square and Pizza Hut Park soccer stadium sit alongside green pastures.

The owner of Frisco Square, Fairways Frisco L.P., is set to break ground on a new phase of the mixed-use project in August. The latest phase will include two four-story office buildings, each with about 17,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, and a 47,000-square-foot building that will house Studio Movie Grill and additional retail. The first office building will be completed in early 2007, while the theater and second office building are slated for summer 2007 delivery.

Frisco Square is not the only development ramping up activity in the Main Street area:

Across the street, Allen-based Dallas International Realty Advisors plans to break ground in September on World Cup Plaza & Main Square, a 92,921-square-foot retail and office project. Plans call for almost 78,000 square feet of retail and about 15,000 square feet of office space, along with a 125-room hotel. World Cup Plaza has signed Pei Wei Asian Diner and several other restaurants. The project, which is expected to be complete next summer, is being marketed by Paul Harmon and Dan Shoevlin of Dallas-based Henry S. Miller Commercial.

Dallas-based Archon Retail is proposing Frisco Commons, a 500,000-square-foot development on 104 acres at the southwest corner of Main Street and Dallas Parkway. Staubach Retail in Dallas is handling leasing for the proposed project.

Dallas-based John T. Evans Co. is marketing a 23,000-square-foot project on Main Street, east of Dallas Parkway.

Nearby, big retail players like Chicago-based General Properties and Forest City Enterprises of Cleveland have staked their claims on huge parcels at Dallas Parkway and U.S. 380.

Ripe for retail

So far, Frisco Square has had more success with residential and office than retail.

But Brant Bryan, a partner in Fairways Frisco L.P., says office and residential demand has shot up in the last year and he expects retail to follow. About 51,600 square feet of office space is almost 100% leased and 114 apartments are about 98% leased.

The project's 40,000 square feet of retail is about 60% occupied.

"There are enough things going on with City Hall and Pizza Hut Park, office and residential demand, that (retail) is going to have critical mass pretty quickly," Bryan said.

In addition to the theater, Frisco Square signed Mattito's Tex Mex restaurant. It is in lease negotiations with Starbucks, an ice cream shop and a diner. And it is in talks with a few fitness center tenants and specialty grocers.

When it opens next week, City Hall will bring in about 200 employees and 500 visitors a day, said Ross Golman, of Dallas-based The Retail Connection, who is handling leasing for the center.

But the expected September 2007 Dallas North Tollway completion, which will link State Highway 121 with U.S. 380, will usher in far greater changes, Golman said.

"By September of '07 there will be a lot of traffic and a lot more density of retail and restaurants," he said.