la Frontera In the News
Round Rock Leader
January 8, 2001
Billionaire car salesman gains ties to Round Rock
La Frontera development one of two in Austin area for Red McCombs
by Marcial Guajardo, Leader Staff
Austin has President-elect Bush and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Stonewall has Lyndon Baines Johnson. By summer, Round Rock will add a famous billionaire with a particular liking for cars and Vikings to its list of ties to famous people.
San Antonio car dealer Red McCombs, who also owns the Minnesota Vikings football team, is part owner of the development company creating The Summit at La Frontera, a sprawling, state-of-the art office complex scheduled to open in summer 2001. Koontz-McCombs, a real estate and construction management firm based in San Antonio, will become the first to open a project in the office segment of La Frontera.
“Round Rock has a pro-growth climate,” said Bart Koontz, company president and CEO. “We’re in a park that has multiple amenities. We’re adjacent to Dell’s campus. That’s definitely an incubator for success. When you start putting that together, it’s a recipe for success.”
The amenities at La Frontera, a multi-million dollar project that will include office, retail and residential segments, have served as quite attractive carrots dangled in front of developers. Development firm Kennedy-Wilson Inc. broke ground on its 301 Sundance Parkway office building Dec. 18. Koontz-McCombs broke ground on its project almost two months earlier.
The amenities include its location, near Dell at an intersection some are already hailing as the “Sales Tax Capital of Texas.” La Frontera also comes complete with a fiber optic cabling system and feeds off dual electrical substations, allowing for a backup in case one is knocked off-line.
The Summit will have five buildings spread out across a total of 200,000 square feet. The project’s first phase consists of duo, two-story buildings that will anchor the development, debut its tech design and serve as a low-lying buffer between the Chisholm Valley neighborhood and La Frontera.
“What we see and really like about the Koontz-McCombs project is it has built-in flexibility,” said La Frontera sales broker Dan Listrom. “It can develop out of whatever the market demands as the market demands. From our standpoint, it is also a very well designed and interesting project in that it has very much a tech look to its architecture.”
Technology companies are the target tenants for The Summit. So far, the project does not have a tenant secured.
Koontz and McCombs formed their partnership after a long friendship. The two became familiarized through Koontz’s father, who worked in the cattle business along with McCombs. The two continued to cross paths until Koontz, ready to start his own development business, asked McCombs to join him.
This month, Koontz-McCombs will break ground on its second Austin-area development. Park Central, to be built at 12345 N. Lamar Blvd., will also target high-tech companies and will come packed with amenities as well. The first half of the two-phase project is scheduled for completion in fall 2001.
