Charlton Promotes Park Central Potential

Mike Charlton drove by the land he now owns off of Pleasant Grove Road for 10 years before he bought it in January.

Now, he has plans for the first ever planned unit development in the city of Lowell: Park Central. The 123-acre development has the potential capacity for 1.5 million SF of commercial space and a potential build-out value of $150 million (based on a selling rate of $100 per finished out SF).

“I always thought that that land was overpriced and out in the middle of nowhere,” Charlton said. “But, I feel like the market and the area have both made it no longer out in the middle of nowhere and no longer overpriced. Now, it looks like it is going to be a tremendous project.”

The appraised value of the lots with infrastructure in place in Park Central is $25 million. Bank of Rogers is financing the land purchase and development of Park Central.

Charlton is a 50/50 partner with his father John Charlton in Charlton Development LLC, an umbrella name that houses about 15 different LLCs including Charlton Construction Inc. Charlton Development owns, operates and built the more than 100,000-SF of mixed-use space in the Oak Trace Business Park in Bentonville.

Charlton Development also began construction on 28,900-SF of space in four buildings in their new 20-acre Brightwood Business Park in Bentonville in the fall of 2003 and Brightwood will eventually have 200,000 SF of retail and office space. Charlton also developed the 17,000-SF Greenwich Centre retail complex in Bella Vista and the Brightwood, Wildwood and Walnut Valley subdivisions in Bentonville. Charlton declined to disclose annual revenue.

“We are able to borrow more dollars for less interest for several years in a row, and we are building bigger projects,” Charlton said.

Seven of the 40 commercial lots have been pre-sold in Park Central in the month since Charlton closed on the land.

“We’ve got a car wash, convenience store, quick lube service, Gold’s Gym, a bank and an office retail building that are on lots presold for those projects,” Charlton said.

A national chain drugstore is interested in one lot, but Charlton cannot disclose the retailer yet.

“It’s going to be one of the largest intersections in Benton County,” Charlton said. “We named it Park Central because it’s so central to the area being right off 71 business, it’s only a mile to the bypass right there.”

Charlton plans to begin land excavation around March 1 and start site construction by the end of April. Because of the project size, he plans on bringing in two subcontractors to help with site work.

The prepped land with infrastructure in place will sell from $5.50 to $7.50 per SF.

“We will probably build an office complex out there and own and operate it,” Charlton said. “But the majority of things will be land sales. We will keep a handful of things ourselves to build and lease.”

Because Charlton Construction is also the general contractor on most of their projects, they are able to eliminate overhead.

MIke Charlton has also been a real estate broker since 1987. The firm draws up 95 percent of their own contracts.

“I’ve never taken a dollar home from my commission checks,” Charlton said. “I always put it back to the property to keep the dollars down.”

Charlton said he believes the market demand indicates the need for a large-scale development like Park Central.

“Part of it is momentum,” Charlton said. “Once things start rolling or selling and leasing, they tend to just keep on doing that,” Charlton said. “And that’s when we run out of space.”

Charlton said the existing commercial space Charlton Development owns is about 100 percent leased all the time.