The first speculative mass timber office building completed in North Texas has set the bar high in the nation's fourth-largest metropolitan area.
The Offices at Southstone Yards, a seven-story, 242,000-square-foot mass timber office building developed by Crow Holdings Development, was substantially completed last year. Toyota Financial Services signed a lease for the entire building at the beginning of 2025. The project has earned a 2025 CoStar Impact Award for commercial development of the year in the Dallas-Fort Worth region, as judged by a panel of real estate professionals familiar with the market.
The office building's construction was nearly carbon neutral, with Crow Holdings Development mitigating about 86% of the carbon footprint for an equivalent all-concrete structure. The environmental benefit came without sacrificing the design or amenities of the trophy office building, the developer said.
The structure features large terraces on every floor, a fitness center and healthy dining options with immediate access to three acres of park space.
About the project: The Offices at Southstone Yards is part of a larger mixed-use development that includes hundreds of apartments, dozens of townhouses, restaurants and food trucks, a future hotel and an outdoor event space with more than 9 acres of green space throughout the project. A 2.5-acre central park is expected to tie the various uses together and welcome visitors.
What the judges said: "As the first speculative mass timber office building in the metroplex, the Offices at Southstone Yards has paved the way in a unique and nearly carbon neutral building design," said Newmark's Head of Southeast Research Ching-Ting Wang. The signing of the full-building lease by a division of Toyota showed "how valuable design is," said Dan Bowman, CEO of Allen Economic Development Corp., an economic development group for the city of Allen.
They made it happen: The development team behind The Offices at Southstone Yards was led by Cody Armbrister, senior managing director of Crow Holdings Development, and Jim McCaffrey, managing director of Crow Holdings Development. Turan Duda, founding principal of Duda|Paine Architects, and Brendan Beachler, associate principal at Duda Paine Architects, were the design architects. Scott Armstrong, a studio director and principal at Gensler, and Dana Vickerson, a technical director and senior associate at Gensler, were the architects of record. Colleen Burrows, a senior real estate manager at CBRE, is the property manager. Trey Smith, an executive vice president at CBRE, Jackie Fraker Marshall, senior vice president at CBRE and Ben Davis, a senior vice president at CBRE, arranged the full-building lease of the building.
CoStar Market Manager Dennis Sallows contributed to this report.