CORFAC News

A Redevelopment Play, Single-Family Townhomes and Apartments Coming to the Former Building Supply Property Located 1-Mile West of Downtown Houston

Houston, TX (March 16, 2015) – After more than 100 years of operating a business on Washington Avenue in Houston, The Detering Company has relocated to a new 107,000-square foot facility on a 19-acre site located at 6800 Helmers Street near Loop 610 North in Houston.

J. Michael Boyd (Mike), CRE, SIOR and Principal of Boyd Commercial LLC/CORFAC International, the firm he founded in 1977, represented The Detering Company in a series of real estate transactions which facilitated the move.  The deals which took over two years to orchestrate, included the sale of three parcels of land, the purchase of two parcels of land and a build-to-suit of an office and warehouse facility.

The Detering Company, a building materials supply company that was established in 1926, formerly occupied approximately 5.4 acres of land and 70,000 square feet at its former headquarters located at 3028 Washington Avenue.
Detering’s new headquarters is on a 19-acre site, which fronts Irvington and Bennington Streets as well as Helmers. It consists of a 16-acre site acquired from Quasar Land, Ltd. and a 3-acre site acquired from Irvington Holdings, LLC. A new built-to-suit facility of approximately 107,000 square feet was recently completed and opened at the company’s new headquarters. Detering demolished a building on the property it acquired to make room for the new building. In addition, Detering is renovating a 25,000-square-foot building on the property that it plans to occupy.

“We did a five-year strategic plan in 2012 that called for some pretty aggressive growth goals and it became obvious that we would need a new location before the timeline of the strategic plan expired. When Mike Boyd identified a suitable replacement property – the 16-acre piece on Helmers, we set the expansion and relocation in motion,” said Carl Detering Jr.

Mike Boyd said that Detering’s former property was sold to residential builders who intend to redevelop the land into mid-density housing to take advantage of the land’s proximity to downtown Houston and the increased desirability for many Houstonians to live in or near the downtown.

Award Winning Deal
Due to the complexity of this series of land transactions and assemblage for a new headquarters facility, Mike Boyd won the William C. Jennings Award from the Texas Association of Realtors for the “Most Outstanding Commercial Real Estate Transaction” in Texas in 2014.

Boyd was presented the award at a ceremony in Austin last month. It is the second time he has won the Jennings award from the Texas Association of Realtors. He shared the award in 2000 with his colleague at Boyd Commercial/CORFAC International, R. Conrad Bernard, SIOR.

Historical Ties
The Detering family was one of Mike Boyd’s early clients and he did his first transaction with them some 40 years ago. He helped the Detering’s assemble their now former headquarters on Washington Avenue by acquiring some of the land from the Southern Pacific Railroad in the 1980s, while other parcels were acquired from a church, the City of Houston and a private owner. While Detering owned the original 3028 Washington property since the 1890s, the company had been leasing portions of their property from the railroad for use in the family’s building supply business, which had grown through the years from its original iteration in 1926. Boyd’s original dealings were with Carl Detering Sr. but later Detering turned many of his business operations, including real estate decisions, over to his son Carl Detering Jr. Carl Detering Jr. still runs The Detering Company. His grandfather, Herman Detering, moved to Houston as a teenager in the late 1880s and originally worked as a night watchman at a Hinke’s grocery store, which was much later bought by Kroger. Herman Detering started a grocery store of his own on the Washington Avenue property that was just sold. A few years after the grocery store closed, his son, Carl Sr., opened the building supply company on the land in 1926.

About CORFAC International
CORFAC International (Corporate Facility Advisors) is comprised of privately held entrepreneurial firms with expertise in office, industrial and retail real estate leasing and investment sales, multifamily property acquisitions and dispositions, property management and corporate services. Founded in 1989, CORFAC International is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2014. In association with FIABCI (the International Real Estate Federation) and global affiliates, CORFAC International offers commercial real estate services with market reach in 48 countries worldwide. Last year CORFAC firms completed more than 10,000 lease and sales transactions totaling approximately 368 million square feet of space valued in excess of $7.4 billion. For more information on the CORFAC network, contact 703.532.6160 or visit www.corfac.com.