Citadel Partners
Daniel Mullen, left, and Andy Goldston.
Andy Goldston’s decision to put down roots in Fort Worth, you probably won’t be surprised to learn from the commercial real estate professional, had all to do with location, location, location.
It all has a familiar ring to it.
“Blake [his wife] and I sat down and said, ‘All right, where do we want to raise our kids? Do we want to raise them where we are now, or do we want go somewhere else?’ We both agreed that we want to raise our kids in Fort Worth.”
Somebody with a taste for tranquility, as our man Randolph Scott, as Ned Britt in "Fort Worth," once said.
Goldston took an opportunity before him and packed up a U-Haul. Goldston is the market principal of Citadel Partners’ Fort Worth office in downtown, established in January 2021. He leads a two-man team there that includes adviser Daniel Mullen.
“We had been working in Fort Worth for a long time,” Goldston said. “We’ve represented a lot of tenants for a long time.”
Therefore, of course, the decision by managing partners Scott Morse and Scott Jessen — The Scotts, as they’re called — to open a physical branch in Fort Worth was a logical one.
Citadel Partners, a corporate tenant and asset services real estate advisory firm specializing in industrial and office spaces, was founded in Dallas in 2011 by Morse and Jessen.
Theirs is a “tenant-focused mentality,” Goldston said.
Citadel’s Fort Worth branch recently represented Sanara MedTech in an expansion at 1200 Summit Avenue, as well as Sproles Woodard LLP in renewing at 777 Main. The firm also represented The Capital Chart Room’s renewal at One West 7th, at 2821 W. Seventh St., Goldston said.
Citadel Fort Worth also represented Weaver, a national accounting firm, in a 35,948-square-foot lease renewal last year at One West 7th.
Weaver was the original lead tenant for the seven-story development, which opened 14 years ago in the West Seventh submarket. Weaver occupies the top two floors and enjoys top-of-building signage.
Goldston termed industrial real estate in Tarrant County as healthy. “We've had a lot of speculative development here in Tarrant County and Tarrant County has done really well on the industrial side even with rates increasing and some of construction slowing down a little bit.”
He noted that the nationwide office market has the potential for headwinds with loans coming due and owners struggling to refinance at today’s rates. “This is increasing the number of loan defaults that we see in the office market,” Goldston said. “However, Fort Worth is better positioned to weather any headwinds than most other parts of the country because of our consistent population growth and diversity of industry.”
Goldston is a well-rounded guy. He has a history degree from Oklahoma. He focused that discipline on Colonial history and the evolution of culture in the U.S. with a concentration on music, language, and religion “through the blending of cultures from around the world.”
Goldston was a finalist for the Stemmons Service Award: Young Citizens in 2021.
Goldston and Mullen are good friends even though, ahem, Mullen is a graduate of Texas. There is no doubt good-natured ribbing between the two, as there was when we all met. Their wives went to school together at TCU and they have in common young children. The Goldstons are parents of almost 4-year-old twins, a boy and a girl; and the Mullens have a newborn.
So, together, they are growing families and a business in Fort Worth.
“We'd like to grow,” Goldston said. “We’d like to have specialists in each submarket of Tarrant County and also grow the asset services side of our business, as well.”