Foundry Commercial is developing its seventh office-to-industrial conversion project and its second in the Dallas market. The company will replace a 250,000-square-foot, 1980s era office building with two industrial assets totaling more than 300,000 square feet of space in Plano, Texas. Demolition work is set to begin this month and the developer expects to complete both new buildings by the first quarter of 2026.

Foundry acquired the office building and the associated 22 acres of land earlier this year. Dallas-based Thirty-Four Commercial was engaged by the unidentified seller to market the property to office users. As the market shifted and the demand for Class A industrial supply increased, the brokerage firm reached out to Foundry to buy the property.

Plano Midpoint will rise at 2700 W. Plano Parkway, the former site of Transamerica’s Plano office, which has been vacant since May 2020. The property is just north of the President George Bush Turnpike and some 21 miles from downtown Dallas.

Foundry will demolish the office building and replace it with two industrial facilities measuring 226,900 square feet and 96,100 square feet. Both buildings will feature 32-foot clear heights.

Jim Traynor, Foundry’s Developments & Investments deal principal for the Dallas area, said in a prepared statement the speculative project, the only one in Plano, meets a critical need for industrial space in the city where zoning for light industrial is rare.

The City of Plano approved a $750,000 grant for Foundry Commercial in June for the conversion project. The approval requires Foundry to build a minimum of 300,000 square feet of manufacturing, industrial, office and research and development space at the site and make property improvements worth at least $21 million by late December 2026.

Foundry’s other conversion projects

In addition to Plano Midpoint, Foundry’s other office-to-industrial conversion in the Dallas market is Horizon Landing, underway at 4000 Horizon Way in Irving, Texas. The first building is slated for completion later this year.

Foundry acquired the 24.2-acre property, including a two-story, 287,000-square-foot office building constructed in 1999, in December 2023. The site will soon feature three rear-load warehouses totaling 337,000 square feet. The conversion project will feature up to 70 trailer parking stalls or outside storage on an additional 2.4 acres.

Foundry’s D&I platform has increasingly been focusing on these strategic asset conversions in infill locations as demand for industrial properties grew while office vacancies increased. The platform has five other conversion projects in various stages of development and predevelopment, with more planned in the future. The company is demolishing more than 1 million square feet of obsolete office buildings and replacing them with about 2 million square feet of industrial space over the next 18 months.

Foundry is not the only developer with office-to-industrial conversions underway or completed. It’s a growing CRE trend, particularly in suburban markets with obsolete office space and strong demand for industrial properties near cities like Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta.

This story originally appeared on Commercial Property Executive.