KKR, Hines, Pinto Realty Partners to Develop 971-Acre Master-Planned Business Park

By Georgiana Mihaila, Associate Editor

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. has teamed with Hines and Pinto Realty Partners to develop a 971-acre master-planned business park at the corner of Beltway 8 and Interstate 45 in Houston.

Located in the heart of Houston’s North and Northwest submarkets, where industrial vacancy rates are some of the lowest in the country, Pinto Business Park is Houston’s largest development-ready business park in Houston. With drainage, detention, roads and infrastructure already designed, the site is shovel ready, with tracts available for immediate construction and delivery.

According to an official release, the development program includes an immediate focus on build-to-suit transactions and individual land sales to corporate end users. When fully built out, the park represents an opportunity of 9 million square feet. Tenants will benefit from the business park’s location, which is proximate to Bush Intercontinental Airport, downtown and the Port of Houston.

“Pinto Business Park will offer manufacturing clients the benefits of a large-scale, controlled business park setting and distribution clients the benefit of a second-to-none location that has frontage and eight access points on the city’s main connections to Houston and its surrounding markets,” said Palmer Letzerich, managing director at Hines.

Under the terms of the agreement, Hines and KKR have exclusive rights to develop the business park, which is owned by Pinto Realty Partners, a subsidiary of Cockrell Interests Inc. The partnership will primarily look to pursue an industrial build-to-suit strategy for credit tenants.

The joint venture is highly confident in the development’s success, given the low vacancy rate, ongoing positive absorption, increasing values and moderate new construction currently characterizing the Houston industrial market.

“We are looking forward to leveraging the partnership’s development capabilities and access to capital on a site that we have owned for over 20 years,” said Ernie Cockrell, managing director of Pinto Realty Partners. “With entitlements and development capital in place, now is the time to transform a best-in-class site into a best-in-class development.”

The Houston office of Studley Inc. has been hired to represent Pinto Business Park and attract tenants.