Earning the marketplace's respect as an entrepreneurial investor, Gary Walker, president of SkyWalker Property Partners, has served as managing partner for more than 25 commercial real estate investments since 1990.
SkyWalker’s portfolio, currently valued at $125 million, exceeds 550,000 square feet of office, industrial, retail and residential space in North Texas. The focus is value-add acquisitions of mid-size assets – funded by investment pools of individual investors seeking strong returns. The testament to SkyWalker Property Partners’ success is an investment record with an overall weighted average IRR of 53.3% and 41.01% for 12 investments held at least one year.
Walker, who holds a BBA degree in finance from Baylor University, is the managing member of The Hangover Opportunity Fund, LLC , which targets distressed commercial properties in a variety of acquisition scenarios with sellers and lenders. Simply put, it's about investing in making places better.
Values, solutions and hard work have enabled Walker to ride the highs and lows of real estate cycles since the mid-1980s. In 1990, he founded the predecessor to SkyWalker Property Partners and two years later, he rolled out Stewardship Commercial Management, Inc. (SCM Real Estate Services), a full-service shop for property management, project leasing, tenant representation and investment sales.
Underwriting both successes are professionals trained to make their efforts count by making a difference in real estate and communities at large.
SCM Real Estate's 11 licensed agents have closed more than $100 million in acquisitions and dispositions and leased in excess of three million square feet for clients. They manage more than $60 million of commercial properties space, totaling 1.2 million square feet, and oversee sale and lease listings for an additional 2.5 million square feet of commercial space and approximately 150 acres of developable land in Dallas/Fort Worth.
Walker puts his beliefs to work each and every day by being actively involved in brokerage, economic development and civic circles. He sits on boards of directors for the Arlington Chamber of Commerce, North Texas Commercial Association of Realtors and Central Arlington Initiative. He also is the founding member of the Citizens United for Barnett Shale, formed to protect oil investments in the area, and a member of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce and Tarrant Real Estate Council. The Fort Worth resident is a longtime volunteer of Big Brothers and Big Sisters and Homes of Hope, a South Carolina-based organization that provides affordable rental housing and home ownership opportunities to low-income residents.
