Foundry Plots Office-to-Industrial Development in Irving

An Irving office building is meeting its end, as its owner aims to repurpose the site.

Florida-based Foundry Commercial has acquired the 287,000-square-foot building at 4000 Horizon Way, northwest of Dallas near Interstate 635, the Dallas Morning News reported.

Foundry, which has offices in Dallas, wants to demolish the two-story structure to make way for a 24-acre, 337,000-square-foot industrial complex. The teardown is slated to begin in early 2024.

Its location near the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport is strategic for logistics but has “high barriers to entry,” Foundry’s Jim Traynor told the outlet.

The surging demand for warehouse space in North Texas drew the firm to this project, Traynor said. Dallas-Fort Worth’s office sector has struggled since the pandemic triggered the remote-work movement and drove up vacancies across the region.

Meanwhile, industrial development and investment are on an epic hot streak. Dallas-Fort Worth did $13.2 billion in industrial deals in the first nine months of this year, and the Metroplex led the nation in industrial construction.

The office vacancy rate in DFW is at 27 percent. In the area around 4000 Horizon Way, the vacancy rate has doubled to about 25 percent since 2019, the outlet reported. A declining office sector has prompted a number of office landlords to repurpose their assets.

While office-to-industrial projects are picking up steam, office-to-residential conversions are more common. Rosewood Property Company bought and demolished the former Allstate office campus on State Highway 114 in Irving last year, with plans to build a mix of apartments and medical space. Office-to-resi projects are expected to yield 2,000 multifamily units in DFW, with the bulk of conversions taking place in downtown Dallas.