RadioShack leaving Fort Worth?
Rumors fly, but company says lease in place to 2011
Rumors flew nationwide last week that RadioShack Corp. was in the hunt for a new headquarters’ location. Though the Fort Worth electronics company issued a statement to the Fort Worth Business Press saying it does not comment on rumors or speculation other than to say no changes have been made to its lease, which runs through 2011, the buzz among Fort Worth dealmakers is the search is on.
“It’s a good business move on their part to be looking at their next step,” said Nina Petty, former vice president of corporate real estate for RadioShack and a current stockholder in the company. “And you get a real estate community sniffing around and word is going to get out and where there’s smoke, there’s usually fire.”
The rumors follow a story published in the Tampa Bay Business Journal on Nov. 6 speculating RadioShack is the unidentified company seeking “a Class A office building of between 300,000 square feet to 350,000 square feet for new corporate headquarters,” the news story reads.
RadioShack currently is in a lease that runs through 2011. According to a RadioShack spokesperson, terms of that lease “have not been changed [and there is] nothing new to discuss concerning long-term decisions.”
It is typical for a company to begin searching for new office space 12 to 18 months prior to the end of a lease. The company employs about 1,700 people at its headquarters currently.
Spokesman for the mayor and Fort Worth City Council Jason Lamers said the city cannot comment on the rumors. Andra Bennett, spokeswoman with the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce said the chamber also cannot comment.
Commercial Real Estate Reporter Janet Leiser, who wrote the Tampa story, said her sources report the city’s economic development office was asked for a tax incentive to build a 300,000- to 350,000-square-foot headquarters for an “unnamed Texas company.”
Leiser said several sources identified RadioShack as the interested company shopping for incentives. The company reportedly wanted to make the move in 2010 and would be “willing to rebrand itself once it relocated,” Leiser said.
Since writing her story, Leiser said her sources have told her Tampa is likely out of the running for the deal and that Charlotte, N.C., is making headway with an incentive package.
RadioShack became an official Fort Worth company in 1963 when Charles Tandy, chairman of the board of Tandy Corp. in Fort Worth, purchased RadioShack. The company made waves in Fort Worth in the early part of the decade when it purchased land from the Fort Worth Housing Authority for $20 million on Oct. 30, 2001, and built a nearly 1 million-square-foot corporate headquarters campus in downtown Fort Worth. As part of an effort by city staff to ensure the company kept its headquarters in Fort Worth, RadioShack received an incentive package that would rebate the company’s property taxes for 30 years.
RadioShack opened its $200 million campus in March 2005 and in December sold the campus to KanAm Grund for $222 million and subsequently leased the property back.
In June 2008, Tarrant County College purchased RadioShack’s campus from KanAm Grund with the agreement that RadioShack could remain in 400,000 square feet of space at the new college campus rent-free until 2011. Per the sale agreement, RadioShack has the option to stay until 2013, but would pay rent at market value rates for the two extended years.
Former Fort Worth Mayor Kenneth Barr, who was mayor during RadioShack’s negotiations with the city for the incentive to build its new downtown headquarters building, said he too has heard the rumors.
“But I don’t know anybody at RadioShack anymore and that’s almost a commentary on a company that once was a local business leader, and now it’s a company not involved heavily in the Fort Worth community,” he said.
Barr, who championed RadioShack during the negotiations, said it was critical that the company stay then and the same is true today.
“I can’t think of anywhere in the country that they’d be better situated than they are here,” Barr said. “And I would hope the leadership of our community will help them recognize that this is a superior place for them to be.”
RadioShack CEO Julian Day has reportedly never fully relocated to Fort Worth since his hire in July 2006 – another possible influence on the company, Petty said.
“Obviously they only have a certain amount of time at the TCC building and it would not be in any way unusual for them to be contemplating their options at this point,” Petty said. “It’s a good management and leadership move, but it’s also sad for Fort Worth.”
