Twenty years after kicking off the project, developers of Plano's Granite Park business campus are gearing up for the largest building yet.
Developer Granite Properties is already marketing office space in the 18-story, 415,000-square-foot high-rise it plans to build on State Highway 121 just east of the Dallas North Tollway.
"This will be the tallest building in Granite Park," said Will Hendrickson, Granite Properties' senior managing director. "It will also be the nicest and the most heavily amenitized building we have ever delivered."
Designed by Dallas architects BOKA Powell and HKS, the Granite Park Six tower is positioned to start in early 2020.
Granite Properties has already constructed more than 2 million square feet of offices in the Granite Park mixed-use development.
Hendrickson said the existing office buildings are 94% leased.
"Our largest block of empty space is only 8,000 square feet," he said. "That's why we are really focused on Granite Park Six right now.
"The response we are getting is very very positive," Hendrickson said. "The market is strong, and we are very optimistic."
Plans for the new building include a ground floor market café serving breakfast, lunch and take-home meals. Plus, there will be a customer lounge with a coffee bar and a golf simulator.
There will be a lecture hall with seating for 200, along with conference rooms.
Granite Park Six will also have a staffed fitness center that hosts classes. A fifth floor amenity deck will have landscaped outdoor spaces.
"We are celebrating the 20th anniversary of Granite Park right now," Hendrickson said. "As we have evolved across the park and developed new buildings, we have continued to expand the quality of the properties."
When Granite Properties kicked off the 93-acre development in the late 1990s, the area around the high-profile tollway corner was empty fields.
The first 10-story office high-rise was considered a stretch for an area that hadn't seen similar developments.
Since then, Granite Properties has built six office towers, a 300-room Hilton Hotel, and a restaurant and retail village that faces a small lake.
The last building completed at Granite Park was the 10-story, 330,000-square-foot project the developer constructed for mortgage giant Fannie Mae. That building opened at the end of 2017.
Along with about 1,000 Fannie Mae workers, other companies including Alkami Technology, Altice USA, Conversant, Entrust Funding, Gateway Mortgage, Guardian Life Insurance, Navistar International, Siemens and System Soft Technologies have thousands of employees in the office park.
With the Granite Park Six building slated for the north side of the campus, Granite Properties still has more room for more office projects.
'We have two other sites we can go on with additional development," Hendrickson said.
