How expansion can sometimes demolish even the best-laid plans

I have written about the role your office location can play in the growth of your business. I also have extolled the benefits of having a separate entity to own those buildings that your business pays rent to and how that can fund a nice retirement when you are ready. But let me tell you about a drawback to building ownership.

In the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) market, we own three offices: one in Lewisville, one in Plano, and one in Fort Worth. We also own one in Tyler, Texas.

We chose each location for its visibility. I can quote to anyone the number of cars passing each building daily. These drivers see our signs and buildings, which significantly increases our advertising and helps people know us.

Prime location problem

One downside to owning a building on a highway is that sometimes the highway needs to expand — and needs your land to do so. In the 36 years we have been in the DFW market, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) has knocked on my door three times for highway expansion purposes.

The first time was inconsequential because it wanted a tiny strip of dirt that did not impact our use of the land or the building. TxDOT needed about 75 square feet of dirt and paid us $75,000. We sold that office many years ago when we outgrew the location.

The second time was at our main building in Lewisville. Again, it had no impact on the building. TxDOT only wanted land by the access road for its highway expansion. They paid me more for that land than I had paid for the entire building with the land, and I was a happy person. The money enabled us to remodel the building, making it significantly better for our use, and we did not have to borrow any money to do so.

Third time not the charm

During the COVID-19 years, I spent some time searching for offices, and that is when I found our buildings in Fort Worth and Plano. If you know the DFW Metroplex, we basically divided the city into thirds and put an office in each third.

The third time TxDOT came knocking, though, it wanted to “clip” the corner of the Fort Worth building and needed to tear it completely down. You read that right: TxDOT is tearing down my Fort Worth building as I write this column. I took the photo above in late March.

Now, TxDOT cannot just take buildings without compensation. They compensated me with enough money to pay off the building loan, plus money left over to rebuild. Whether I will be able to build anything as nice as what they took down, I do not know.

I do know that I took pride in making this building work for us, and I loved how it looked from the highway. For now, I have decided to take a wait-and-see attitude. I may even let my son, Russell, figure it out and build something when he is ready. My wife and I can retire as long as our main building in Lewisville stands and the loans get paid off, so that’s my immediate focus.

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