WareSpace is making lemonade out of a long-vacant big box retail property in Plano.
The industrial operator based in Maryland is turning the former Fry’s Electronics store, at 700 East Plano Parkway, into industrial space, according to a release from the company. The 175,000-square-foot standalone store has been vacant for four years.
The finished product won’t be your typical warehouse. WareSpace is building out small industrial suites ranging from 200 to 2,500 square feet, so the property will function more like “a small business hub for the community,” said CEO Levi Cohen.
“We’re coming with a unique offer. We’re not putting in like a huge, big box industrial site with tractor-trailers coming in and out 24/7,” he said. “We make the buildings look nice as well. They’re not an eyesore.”
Cohen didn’t disclose the asking rents, but he said the terms of the leases are flexible. Companies can rent space for six months or a year without making a long-term commitment.
Tenants at WareSpace’s properties range from local tradespeople, like plumbers and electricians, to candle-makers to online resellers.
WareSpace has 20 locations all over the country, including four other properties in Texas — three in Dallas-Fort Worth and one in Houston.
The Plano project points to the adaptive reuse opportunities for big box retail vacancies left by the bankruptcies and closures of stores like Forever 21 and Party City. While some spots are getting backfilled with experiential companies or fitness concepts, industrial conversion provides another option.
Dallas-Fort Worth’s industrial market has exploded in the last decade, moving the area to third among the nation’s top markets, behind Los Angeles and Chicago. Despite weathering a glut of deliveries amid a period of rampant growth, vacancy in the market is still down, from 9.5 percent in the second quarter of 2024 to 9.1 percent a year later, according to Partners Real Estate.
Even so, Cohen said the strength of the area’s industrial market isn’t the top driver for his company’s investment in DFW.
“For us, it’s not even about being an industrial hub. It’s more that there’s just a significant amount of people moving there,” he said. “We know there’s just a huge market for us there, just based on the population count and the trajectory of where the city’s going.”
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