February 12, 2016

Three questions with Ocie Vest, Senior Vice President of Entitlements at Stratford Land

Story by Candace Carlisle
Dallas Business Journal

In the past four years, Dallas-based Stratford Land has sold more than $618 million worth of land totaling about 25,000 acres throughout the United States — with $40.6 million in deals in North Texas.

The real estate investment fund has seen a strong demand for land to accommodate single-family and apartment development, and officials say they don’t expect that demand to stop anytime soon.

“There are quite a few projects in North Texas and we are looking for new opportunities,” said Ocie Vest, senior vice president of entitlements at Stratford Land.

Some of the notable Dallas-Fort Worth land deals completed by Stratford Land include the acreage for the $1.5 billion CityLine development in Richardson and The Walton Group’s 261-acre tract for the Chisholm Trail Ranch master-planned community.

We chat with Vest about Stratford Land’s plans for the next big move in North Texas:

Where will North Texas’ next big land deal be located? The completion of the Chisholm Trail Parkway in Fort Worth has created a new submarket, and everyone is excited about things happening out there. We have 600 acres on the Parkway. We also have 3,200 acres in the City of Denton called Cole Ranch. We are in the middle of wrapping up an entitlement package and it should go to market this year as well.

What could be built on Cole Ranch in Denton? This could be a master-planned community that would start with residential. We are hoping to have some activity on Cole Ranch at the second half of next year.

How is The Canyon in Oak Cliff project going? We have been busy doing the infrastructure work for that project for the past two or three years. The first commercial development is coming out of the ground and we’ve got some single-family and multifamily land on the market now that the infrastructure is complete. This is a unique property in an area of town close to downtown Dallas. It’s not often that you get a site like this.