News Article | 5/11/2004

Growing Gamestop Buys Bigger Site

Fort Worth Star-Telegram05/11/04

GROWING GAMESTOP BUYS BIGGER SITE

By Andrea JaresStar-Telegram Staff WriterGRAPEVINE – Rapidly growing video game retailer GameStop plans to move to a new Grapevine headquarters next year, about a mile away from its current location.The company, which is on track to open more than 300 stores this year and next, has outgrown its 240,000-square-foot leased location at 2250 William D. Tate Ave. in Grapevine. The company recently purchased a site at 625 Westport Parkway, also in Grapevine, from Hillwood.”We’ve done all we can here. We’ve maxed out the distribution center,” said Lori Milovich, a company spokeswoman. “We’ve been very clever with doing that, but it’s time.”GameStop plans to move into the building next spring.The company has grown to 650 employees from about 50 in 1996, the year it moved into the building. During that time, the company has grown to 1,600 stores from 400, Milovich said.The growth has made parking particularly dear, with GameStop leasing additional space at neighboring parking lots for employees, Milovich said.”Knowing the growth was continuing, it was time to look at the appropriate space for our rapid development,” Milovich said.The property sold for between $11 million and $14.7 million, said Dan Tatsch, who represented Hillwood in the transaction along with Mark Miller of Robert Lynn Co. The building and 17 acres are appraised at $10.3 million, according to the Tarrant Appraisal District.Tatsch said the building is particularly attractive because of its location, size and abundance of parking. The building is a shell that is easy to adapt, Tatsch said.”They pretty much had a clean sheet to work with in terms of putting in their own office layout, their own warehouse improvements,” he said.Hillwood had developed the location in 1999 as a site for online grocer Webvan, which has since left the market and filed for bankruptcy.Since that time, several companies have used the space for overflow operations. In the past, interest has mainly come from warehousing and distribution operations, Tatsch said.Tom McCarthy and Sharon Morrison of the Staubach Co. represented GameStop.