Ericsson to Occupy Half-Million SF Near Dallas

June 28, 2011
By Barbra Murray, Contributing Editor

Just three weeks after closing its $43.1 million acquisition of the former Nortel Networks Inc. campus in Richardson, Texas, Pillar Commercial has orchestrated two lease agreements with current tenant Ericsson that increase the telecommunication company’s occupancy at the 800,000 square-foot property from 200,000 square feet to 460,000 square feet.

Ericsson’s planned growth spurt at the Nortel Campus, sited 15 miles north of Dallas at 2201-2221 Lakeside Blvd. in Richardson’s revitalized Telecom Corridor, comes courtesy of a new lease deal combined with a renewal and expansion of its existing lease.

The company’s new 200,000 square-foot space will be located in the 18-acre complex’s main tower, a 16-story structure encompassing approximately 400,000 square feet. And as per terms of the renewal agreement, Ericsson will hold onto its current 200,000 square-foot digs in the nearly 400,000 square-foot research and laboratory building.

Developed in 1991 as a build-to-suit to serve as Nortel’s U.S. headquarters, the campus benefits from the previous occupant’s substantial investment in the technological and mechanical infrastructure, which features a data center, as well as telecommunications and power generating capabilities. “The infrastructure, the facility’s proximity to Galatyn Park Urban Center and the DART light rail station, along with new stable ownership, make it one of the Metroplex’s premier corporate office sites,” Mike Wyatt, broker with Cushman & Wakefield Inc., noted. Cushman represented Ericsson in the lease transaction, while Manny Ybarra, founder and principal of Pillar, represented his company.

When Pillar announced the impending closing of the Nortel Campus acquisition in May, Ybarra told CPE that the company will invest several hundred-thousand dollars on a few cosmetic upgrades at both buildings in order to lure premier tenants looking for premier accommodations during this “resurgence of the telecom industry.” According to industry experts, a comeback is, indeed, in the works. As per a first quarter report by commercial real estate services firm Transwestern, despite a bevy of job losses in the Dallas/Fort Worth area’s information/telecom sector last year, “competition among voice, video and data carriers to build out the latest high speed technologies is expected to translate into a relatively strong year for the North Texas region’s plethora of telecom equipment vendors.”