Accolades

CMC returns to retail at Little Elm
Dallas Business Journal
by Christine Perez and Sandra Zaragoza

After more than a decade of focusing on office development, CMC Commercial Realty Group is jumping back into the retail game.

The Dallas-based developer will kick off construction Nov. 7 on a 13-acre, $20 million strip center at the southeast corner of F.M. 423 and El Dorado Parkway in Little Elm. About 30% of the space in Villages at El Dorado has been spoken for. The rest of the three-building complex is being developed on a speculative basis, said Jesse Pruitt, CMC principal.

"Housing has outstripped the market in Little Elm," he said. "It's a hot area -- one of the fastest-growing cities in Texas, right up there with Frisco. There is a real lack of services; that's why demand for the space among retailers has been so strong."

Four pad sites at Villages at El Dorado have been sold to CVS Corp. and Yum! Brands Inc., which have already opened up stores, and Hibernia Corp. and Blockbuster Inc., which are both under construction. CMC has letters of intent on the two remaining sites, Pruitt said.

CMC bought the land from Cypress Equities, the retail development and acquisition arm of The Staubach Co., about a year ago. O'Brien & Associates designed the project; ICI Construction Ltd. is the general contractor.

Two clock towers will bookend the project, which will surround a 2-acre park. The roads through the development will be made of cobblestone.

"It has a very European style and will remind people of the Shops at Legacy in Plano," Pruitt said. "We were going for a real upscale feel. We didn't want it to be just an ordinary strip center."

Darrell Hernandez and J.D. Robertson with United Commercial Realty are marketing the project for CMC. Starbucks is among the retailers that have signed on for strip-center space.

"We have sold or committed all of our outparcels and activity in the inline space is really good," Hernandez said. "I'd say, with the quality of CMC's project, the activity will continue to ramp up."
For retailers already in nearby Frisco and The Colony, Little Elm is the logical next stop, he said.
"Retailers are continuing to grow brands in this area, and this corner of the Little Elm/Frisco market is key," Hernandez said.

CMC was founded by Subash Gaitonde in 1990. Pruitt, who had worked with Gaitonde at Vantage Cos., joined as a partner in 1994. They have since developed about 5 million square feet of office space in North Texas, Houston, San Antonio and Denver. The company's signature product is single-story tech buildings with brick veneer.

CMC should wrap up construction on Villages at El Dorado in about six months. Pruitt said he's looking at sites extending from Fort Worth to McKinney/Allen for other retail projects.

"We're doing office projects in San Antonio," he said, "but retail is the hot sector in North Texas."