Castle Development was the topic of conversation in a recent edition of Texas Money and Business on KEXB in the Dallas / Fort Worth area. Each week, Jim Kelley of Champions DFW shares his expertise on the commercial real estate market.
Jim also has a vendor partner join him each show, such as Matt MacLeod of Castle Development. Matt works closely with Champions DFW on commercial real estate development.
Jim: Matt talk to us about yourself a little bit and about Castle Development, how that began.
Matt: Well my background is in commercial construction before going back and getting a Master’s degree in finance, kind of blending those skill sets and educations together. Myself and Andrew Miller my partner, kind of came up with the concept of Castle Development. We are a full service commercial real estate developer that specializes in the medical kind of a niche market. We do everything from mid-size hospitals down to physicians’ offices, projects ranging from 25 million down to 5 million.
Jim: Tell us some of the markets that you’re developing in the Dallas / Fort Worth area I think that might be helpful for some of the listeners.
Matt: Okay. Well in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, we are currently developing in Plano, in Frisco, as well as Southlake, Southwest Fort Worth and also in North Fort Worth in the Alliance corridor as well as Mansfield. Jim our projects go all the way from Tulsa down to Victoria…we kind of spread across the state.
Jim: Excellent and who do you tend to focus on in terms of your client base? Are you mostly focused on individual doctors or small practices or hospital groups?
Matt: Our development practice is centered around the individual physician but we’ve done several projects with hospital groups such as Wise Regional Health System, THR, Baylor all the way down to your individual physicians or dentists.
Jim: Do you see any particular trends regarding medical requirements? Are doctors seeking more freestanding type of options in terms of development? Are they looking at going into a multi-tenanted type projects that you’re developing?
Matt: Typically what we see from our physicians is the desire to be in a single story garden office type office that’s close to the community and close to the patients that they serve. In trends in residential real estate here in the market, you’re getting these great clusters of residences that require services and people don’t want to drive for services like they once did. So it makes sense for the physicians to group up in these residential communities. And what we try to do is set up a campus type approach where you have several single story garden offices where the physicians are all kind of cross pollinating and cross referring and being close to their patient base and keeping it convenient for the end user which is the patient.
Jim: If we have some individual doctors or small business owners that are looking to develop an office building in a particular area, what are the processes that you take someone through in terms of locating the right location to getting the specs right on their particular building or space? Can you give us a sense of the process and the timing?
Matt: When we start out we typically analyze the demographics and analytics of the market and try to really gauge it based on the type of practice that’s going in. For instance, in a newer residential area where you’re just starting to get homes coming in, you start out with that primary care, that dentist–kind of your first tier services for your younger families. As it matures, usually bring in specialists and subspecialists and add to that mix.
Jim: Excellent and what kind of timing once you begin a project, build a suite let’s say project for someone, how long can they expect the process to take for you to develop an office building specifically for them?
Matt: Anywhere from six to eight months, Jim.
Learn more about Matt’s expertise and the challenges he faces when you listen to the podcast below.
Learn more about the vendor partnerships of Champions DFW, here.
Learn more about Jim Kelley, here.
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