Benderson Buys $218M Stake in Dallas-Area HQ Campus

Pioneer Natural Resources headquarters. Image via Google Street View

Benderson Development has paid $218 million for an interest in the ground lease under Pioneer Natural Resources’ new 1.1 million-square-foot headquarters in the Las Colinas master-planned community in Irving, Texas. The Dallas-area campus occupies 35 acres of land at Hidden Ridge, a $1 billion mixed-use project that’s being developed by Verizon and real estate developer KDC.

HKS and Duda Paine Architects designed Pioneer’s sprawling 10-story home at 777 Hidden Ridge, which includes such amenities as a daycare center, wellness center and food hall. The oil and gas exploration and production company’s campus also features a seven-story parking facility. KDC completed development of the build-to-suit project in the fourth quarter of 2019 and tapped Cushman & Wakefield to oversee property and facility management. Just before the close of the year, however, KDC and Verizon sold the Pioneer campus to a consortium of Riyad Capital, PRP LLC and GMF Capital for, according to the Dallas Business Journal, $584.2 million. Pioneer will continue to occupy the property under a 20-year lease agreement.

Net growth

Benderson’s Pioneer land lease acquisition marks both an expansion and diversification of the company’s footprint in the Dallas area. Currently, Benderson’s presence in metropolitan Dallas consists solely of retail properties: two CVS stores in Frisco and one each in Plano, Little Elm, Garland and Frisco.

The Pioneer deal also denotes Benderson’s first purchase of 2020, as well as its first office buy in quite some time. The company’s acquisition announcements over the last 18 months have been strictly in the retail sector. In August 2018, Benderson purchased the approximately 45,000-square-foot, shuttered Toys “R” Us/Babies “R” Us building at the East Bay Ridge shopping center in Emeryville and Oakland, Calif., for $15.6 million. And just a few months later, in December 2018, the company bought a portfolio of 15 former Toys “R” Us/Babies “R” Us properties totaling roughly 600,000 square feet across the U.S. Several of the vacated stores have since been leased to PGA TOUR Superstore.