Skyrise Buys Ft. Worth Site from Hillwood

Dallas developer Skyrise Properties has bought the 88,600-square-foot Alliance Gateway Data Center in Fort Worth from Hillwood Development Company, and hired CB Richard Ellis to market the property for use as a data center. The building currently consists of shell space with fiber and a dual power feed in place, positioning it for conversion to a raised-floor data center.

The deal expands the Dallas-area data center ambitions of Skyrise Properties (Fobare Commercial), which is redeveloping the former Alcatel campus in Richardson into a dedicated "data center campus" with a potential capacity of more than 1 million square feet of space. The Alliance building adds to its redevelopment portfolio.

"Purchasing this facility is a tremendous investment opportunity for Skyrise Properties and supports our overall efforts within the data center space," said Tod Fobare of Skyrise Properties. "Alliance is already home to data centers for two companies in the top 10 of the Fortune 500, so it's obvious that the development is an attractive location for these types of facilities."

Hillwood, headed by Ross Perot Jr., put up the building at 13751 Independence Pkwy. in 2001, at the tail end of the dot-com data center building boom. It was one of two data centers that Hillwood built at Alliance in 2001. The second 209,200 square-foot data center was purchased by AIG in 2002.

While it has taken time to find a buyer for the Skyrise site, Hillwood believes the rebound in the data center sector presents opportunities for its huge Alliance business park.

"There's been an increased demand for data centers over the past few months," said Steve Aldrich, vice president of Hillwood Properties. "Not only have we completed this sale, but we're seeing several land deals for data centers to be built at Alliance. Power redundancy, multiple fiber providers and the overall reliable infrastructure of the project are some of the keys that make Alliance jump to the top of the list for data center sites."

The 17,000-acre AllianceTexas development now houses more than 140 companies that occupy 26 million square feet and employ 25,000 workers. In addition to AllianceTexas, Hillwood is known for its development of AllianceCalifornia in San Bernardino and the $420-million American Airlines Center and Victory district near downtown Dallas.