NIT Industrial bought a 151,260-square-foot distribution building at 12614 Hempstead Highway in northwest Houston. The seller, STAG Houston 3 LP, was represented by Ryan Byrd and Walker Barnett of Colliers International. Jason Tangen, also with Colliers International, represented the buyer. NIT, which plans to make capital improvements to the property, has retained Colliers to market the space to tenants.
Terra Energy Partners leased 33,457 square feet at 3050 Post Oak Blvd. in the Lakes on Post Oak office campus near the Galleria. Adam Grimm, Audrey Selber and Andy Iverson of Newmark Knight Frank represented the tenant. CBRE represented the landlord, Sinopec USA.
The Richland Cos. renewed several tenants at its Bay Plaza Office Complex, 711 West Bay Area Blvd. The deals include DYB Advisory Group for 5,039 square feet, Simien Properties for 3,476 square feet and DFI Organics for 2,070 square feet. Angie Steadman represented the landlord in-house.
BH Properties has selected CBRE to lease and manage The Reserve at Park Ten office building at 15721 Park Row in west Houston. Constructed in 2009, the six-story building has 140,000 square feet available for lease. Kirksey Architecture designed renovations to the lobby, tenant lounge and a new conference facility. Steve Rocher, Parker Duffie, and Jackie Mendoza will lead the marketing efforts.
Pomo Resources, doing business as Pomgranit Stones, purchased an 84,894-square-foot industrial building on 5.9 acres at 5150 Blalock Drive. William Rudolf and Kyle Golding with CBRE represented the seller, 5150 Blalock LLC. Cindy Wilson with Groen Realty Partners represented the buyer.
JLL announced today that it has completed the sale and arranged acquisition financing for Sugar Creek Place I, a 151,772-square-foot, Class A office building in the Houston-area community of Sugar Land, Texas.
JLL represented the seller, HighBrook Investors, and procured the buyer, Songy Highroads LLC. Additionally, JLL worked on behalf of the new owner to secure the three-year, floating-rate acquisition financing through an affiliate of Marathon Asset Management, L.P.
Sugar Creek Place I is prominently located at 14100 Southwest Freeway at the corner of Interstate 69 and Commerce Green Boulevard in Sugar Land, one of Houston’s most sought-after and best-performing suburbs. The property has direct access to several primary transportation thoroughfares including Beltway 8, Westpark Tollway, Grand Parkway and U.S. 90, and has convenient access to Sugar Land’s residential communities of First Colony, Greatwood, New Territory, River Park, and Imperial. Recently renovated, the six-story office asset is 86% leased to a diverse tenant roster representing a broad range of business sectors, including energy, real estate, consulting, education, healthcare, and finance.
The JLL Capital Markets team representing the seller was led by Senior Director Martin Hogan and Senior Managing Director Dan Miller.
JLL’s Capital Markets team representing the borrower was led by Senior Managing Director Ed Coco and Directors Matt Casey and Michael Johnson.
JLL Capital Markets is a full-service global provider of capital solutions for real estate investors and occupiers. The firm’s in-depth local market and global investor knowledge deliver the best-in-class solutions for clients — whether investment advisory, debt placement, equity placement or a recapitalization. The firm has more than 3,700 Capital Markets specialists worldwide with offices in nearly 50 countries.
The deal secured by Holliday GP Corp prior to being acquired by JLL on July 1, 2019. Co-brokerage services provided by Jones Lang LaSalle Americas, Inc.
A European investor is close to a deal to buy one of downtown Dallas’ office towers.
Spain-based investor Masaveu Real Estate US wants to purchase the 18-story KPMG Plaza in the Arts District from the Korean investment fund that’s owned it for three years, according to brokerage company reports.
The 450,000-square-foot Ross Avenue office building has been up for sale for the last few months. The office tower is next door to the new 28-story Hall Arts Residences condos and hotel, which is near completion. The Meyerson Symphony Center is across the street.
Commercial property firm Cushman & Wakefield has been marketing the building for sale. Representatives with the firm declined to comment.
Tenants in the building include developer Hall Group, KPMG, UMB Bank, Jackson Walker LLP, and Spencer Stuart. KPMG Plaza has restaurants on the ground floor facing Flora Street and a sculpture garden on the east side of the tower.
The sale to Masaveu is estimated at $240 million, according to a report by real estate firm Colliers International in a just-released newsletter. KPMG Plaza sold for an estimated $200 million the last time it traded.
The nearby 1900 Pearl office tower recently sold for $700 per square foot — the highest price ever paid for a Dallas office project.
The KPMG high-rise is one of a handful of downtown Dallas office buildings that have recently been up for grabs. A Korean investment group just spent more than $96 million to acquire a majority stake in the 37-story One AT&T Plaza skyscraper on Commerce Street.
Masaveu Real Estate US is a unit of Corporación Masaveu, a family-owned investment group based in Oviedo, Spain. Founded in 1840, Masaveu has holdings in real estate, industrial companies, wineries, and medicine. Masaveu has operations in eight countries.
In the U.S., the firm owns buildings in Houston, Miami, and Washington, D.C.
Metro NEXT Plan Earns Houston Realty Business Coalition Stamp Of Approval Houston Other October 15, 2019, Kyle Hagerty, Bisnow Houston Want to get a jump-start on upcoming deals? Meet the major Houston players at one of our upcoming events! At the ballot this November, Houston Metro will ask voters for a $3.5B bond, more than ever before, in hopes of funding 75 miles of rapid bus service and 16 miles of light rail while putting $600M into the local bus system. The plan, not without its critics, could be a game-changer for Houston’s Inner Loop, constrained by traffic and ever-widening highways. The plan was officially endorsed by the Houston Realty Business Coalition, with a two-thirds majority vote from trustees. But with a concerning lack of specifics, Metro NEXT’s vision may be more of a dream. Courtesy of Metro Houston Metro Light-Rail “We are pleased to support this forward-looking bond measure,” Houston Realty Business Coalition Chair Alan Hassenflu said in a statement. President and CEO of Fidelis Realty, Hassenflu is behind several high-profile developments across the Houston area, like the redevelopment of the 1.1M SF San Jacinto Mall and Yale Marketplace, a chic Whole Foods-anchored retail center. “To secure our region’s continued economic prosperity as its population grows to 10 million by 2040, and to keep congestion from crippling our region, we must expand our mobility options in a fiscally prudent manner,” Hassenflu said. “We believe the METRO Proposition does that.” The plan, which can be viewed here, contains dozens of projects aiming to be completed over the course of a 20-year timeline. Metro has said it will apply for matching federal dollars that could raise the investments to $7.5B. The plan lists start and endpoints of routes, but not where the buses or rails will run in between those points. Critics say the lack of transparency about what will be built, when it will be built and where exactly it will be built is setting up voters for a false bill of sale, just like the last Metro bond vote. Courtesy of Metro Houston Metro Buses The last time Houston voters went to the ballot for a Metro bond, a $640M proposal voted on in 2003, things didn’t work out as originally planned. Routes were decided after the vote, changing massive portions of the plan. Critics say the same thing can happen with this bond. “I think the plan is as specific as the process allows,” Metro Chairwoman Carrin Patman said, the Houston Chronicle reported. “No one has to worry they are not going to have a chance to weigh in on a given connection.”
Southern Downtown Park, bounded by Fannin, San Jacinto, Leeland, and Bell, will add green space to downtown Houston.
HOUSTON – (Realty News Report) –Plans for a new downtown park are taking shape with the selection of a restaurant operator and groundbreaking set for March 2020, according to the Downtown Redevelopment Authority.
The park, set to open on March 2021, will be on three-fourths of a block bounded by Fannin, Leeland, Bell, and San Jacinto. The new park site is within a block or two of several high-rise residential towers including Houston House and Skyhouse Houston.
The downtown authority has selected La Vie de St Concepts to operate the restaurant at the Southern Downtown Park. Called Tout Suite, the fast-casual cafe will serve an all-day menu featuring simple, fine foods, baked goods and great coffee ranging from $3 to $18.
“After a thorough RFP process, we are overjoyed to announce the selection of Tout Suite as the café operator for the new Southern Downtown Park,” said Bob Eury, DRA president. “It was important for us to find a team adept at creating spaces that appeal to a wide range of customers, from students to professionals, from locals to out-of-towners.”
Southern Downtown Park—which will feature dog runs, tranquil seating areas, and a flexible event lawn—was designed by Lauren Griffith Associates based on a site programming report from Project for Public Spaces. Gensler is providing architectural services for the site’s fast-casual restaurant and other structures.
The 2,400-SF cafe will feature indoor seating for 56 guests and outdoor seating for 40 guests.
Canada-based design and engineering firm Stantec Inc. (NYSE: STN) will consolidate all of its local employees into downtown Houston’s One Shell Plaza next month.
The company plans to move its approximately 175 local employees from its water, buildings, oil and gas, community development and transportation groups on Nov. 25, according to a press release. It currently has Houston offices at 20 East Greenway Plaza, 500 Jefferson St. downtown and 580 Westlake Park Blvd. in the Energy Corridor.
In its new office, Stantec will occupy the entire 26th floor at 910 Louisiana St. The firm’s architecture and interior design arm designed the new 23,000-square-foot office “to reflect the company’s collaborative culture and foster innovative thinking across several business sectors,” per the release. Features include “open, modern, flexible space with collaboration and group work areas, private and quiet work areas, and break rooms.”
“With one integrated group in one location, we’ll be better positioned to foster innovation, resilient-thinking, and inspire new design approaches,” David Irvine, senior vice president and geographic leader for Stantec, said in the release. “It’s important to us to bring together our diverse expertise to deliver the best solutions for our community and clients.”
With more than 45 years in Houston, Stantec has led the design of such projects as State Highway 288, Sterling Aviation Early College High School, Sul Ross Elementary School and several other K-12 schools. The firm also has led projects such as a large-diameter pipeline valve replacement for the city of Houston’s Southwest Pump Station, the design of the Lake Houston Dam rehabilitation, and program management for the Houston Airport System. It’s also serving as the lead designer for the estimated $90 million expansion of the Barry Rose Water Reclamation Facility in Pearland.
Stantec’s services include architecture and interior design; civil, structural and MEP engineering; surveying; land planning and landscape architecture; environmental services, transportation; and water and wastewater engineering.
In September 2016, Houston-based Shell Oil Co. announced it would completely vacate its namesake downtown tower. Shell Oil, the U.S. arm of the Netherlands-based Royal Dutch Shell PLC (NYSE: RDS-A, RDS-B), planned to move its One Shell Plaza employees to the company’s campuses in west Houston. At the time, only employees in Shell’s trading and supply division at 1000 Main were slated to stay downtown. However, the company still lists its U.S. Chemicals division as located at 910 Louisiana.
Since Shell’s 2016 announcement, several tenants have subleased space from the Dutch energy giant. Houston- and New Jersey-based NRG Energy Inc. (NYSE: NRG) subleased a record-breaking 431,037 square feet.
Peloton Commercial Real Estate has operations in Dallas and Houston.
Two big North Texas real estate companies are joining forces — Peloton and JLL.(G.J. McCARTHY/Staff Photographer)
Two big North Texas real estate players are joining forces.
Dallas-based property firm Peloton Commercial Real Estate is being acquired by JLL, the Chicago-based international real estate services firm.
More than 130 professionals in Peloton’s Dallas and Houston offices will join JLL, which already has a huge presence in the area.
It’s JLL’s second recent major acquisition. It just completed a purchase of Holliday Fenoglio Fowler LP, the Dallas-based investment sales and finance firm.
JLL said its purchase of Peloton will accelerate the growth of the company’s leasing and property management businesses.
“This is a momentous step in our journey to become a market-leading player in Texas,” JLL’s regional director David Carroll said in a statement. “With the exceptional growth we have seen in those markets, Peloton’s position as a leading provider of leasing and property management services will greatly enhance our business capabilities and breadth of services.
“Just as importantly, we look forward to working with a team of professionals that share JLL’s strong commitment to collaboration and culture.”
JLL already has about 700 people in North Texas.
Terms of the sale were not disclosed, and the transaction is still subject to closing conditions.
Peloton’s founders, Joel Pustmueller and T.D. Briggs, will continue to focus on the D-FW and Houston property markets in their new roles at JLL.
A medical office building changed hands in Sugar Land. An undisclosed buyer acquired Town Center Medical, a 30K SF medical office building at 16545 Southwest Freeway. The Class-A property is adjacent to Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital, a 319-bed general acute care hospital specializing in cardiology, oncology, sports medicine, and women’s care. Built-in 2008, Town Center Medical is fully leased. ENT and Allergy, an ear, nose and throat group, serves as the anchor tenant. “The Town Center Medical disposition highlights the robust demand for stabilized, on-campus medical office buildings in the Houston Metro area,” Transwestern Commercial Services’ Robby Winston said. “Sophisticated healthcare real estate investors continue to be optimistic about long-term yields from core medical office assets.” Houston Specialists Alliance Ltd. purchased the land in 2006 from Town Center Lakeside Ltd. for $750K, according to Reonomy. The assessed land value now is $1.3M while the total assessed value of the property is $5.3M, according to Reonomy. Winston, along with Eric Johnson, Lisa Bovermann and Brooks Creech, represented the seller. TCS Houston has executed 522 healthcare transactions during the last 24 months and manages a healthcare portfolio of 69 properties totaling more than 5M SF.
For years, real-estate technology startups watched from the fringes as big banks and venture-capital firms lavished attention on financial-technology firms.
Now “proptech” has joined the party. Startups are raising more cash than ever while landlords are adopting a range of new software and hardware that is changing the way they do business.
New capital sources including some of the world’s biggest banks are taking notice. “We feel like we’ve hit that tipping point a couple of months ago,” said Allison Sedrish, co-head of the new proptech group at Barclays Investment Bank.
In the first half of 2019, venture investors poured $12.9 billion into real-estate tech startups, according to research firm CREtech, already surpassing the $12.7 billion record for all of 2017. In 2013, the total was $491 million.
Proptech Joins the PartyVenture capital invested into real-estate techcompaniesSource: CREtechNote: 2019 figure as of June 26
New investors include some of the world’s biggest commercial property owners and brokerages. Toronto-based Brookfield Asset Management, which has $191 billion of real estate assets under management, last year began investing in proptech startups.
Brookfield is both a user of and investor in such startups as VTS, which provides commercial property owners with online tools for managing leases; Convene, a co-working and workplace amenities firm; and Honest Buildings, which helps owners manage capital projects.
“Innovation is causing revenue to go up and expenses to go down,” said Ric Clark, chairman of Brookfield Property Group.
Several times a week, a drone flies over Texas Tower, taking digital images that Hines compares with job specifications to confirm plans have been accurately followed.PHOTO: JEFF LAUTENBERGER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
The real-estate industry for years had a reputation for being slow to innovate, but investors are betting that is changing because of a confluence of forces.
For starters, the values of many properties have plateaued after rising steadily throughout much of the economic recovery. Many owners view technology as a way to keep growing their bottom lines, either by cutting costs or making their buildings more appealing to tenants.
At the same time, traditional owners are turning to technology to defend themselves against major disruptions in their businesses. In a retail world increasingly dominated by e-commerce, for example, mall and shopping-center landlords have started to test facial recognition and artificial intelligence technology to prove the value of bricks and mortar.
In-office space, the popularity of co-working firms like WeWork Cos. has triggered a race between startups and traditional landlords to provide better tenant amenities. Both sides, for example, are working with startups to develop such things as the best mobile app for office workers.
Openpath Security, which has raised $27 million, enables workers to ditch their card keys and enter their offices with a smartphone app. “We’re one of those amenities in the arms race to up the ante for tenants,” said James Segil, Openpath’s president and co-founder.
Changes taking place in Silicon Valley are making fundraising easier. Real-estate technology-specific venture funds have sprouted, including Fifth Wall Ventures, MetaProp NYC and Zigg Capital. Law firm Goodwin Procter LLP launched a proptech initiative in September with more than 60 attorneys from it’s real-estate and technology practices.
Workers at the Texas Tower construction site in Houston.PHOTO: JEFF LAUTENBERGER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Since 2014, more than 20 proptech startups have joined the unicorn club, meaning they are worth more than $1 billion, according to Fifth Wall. Only one firm achieved that status between 2011 and 2014—Airbnb Inc., Fifth Wall said.
It helps that interest in real estate is growing among some of the world’s biggest players in technology. For example, Japanese conglomerate SoftBank GroupCorp. has made big commitments to firms like WeWork and Compass, a tech-heavy residential brokerage.
“If you see someone like SoftBank piling in the extra hundreds of millions of dollars, it makes you more inclined to say ‘the money could come, so let’s make that early bet,’” said Mark Goldberg, a partner at Index Ventures.
Commercial real estate, of course, hasn’t been completely insulated from new technology until now. Data giant CoStar Group Inc. and software developer Yardi Systems Inc. are both over three decades old.
But many startups failed because they had a difficult time convincing users the costs were justified. “The reason there’s a graveyard of technology companies in real estate is they try to disrupt just to disrupt,” said Robert Reffkin, chief executive of Compass, during a panel discussion in 2015.
As the world changed and technology improved, landlords lately have been much faster to adapt and adopt. Lincoln Property Co. is testing 16 different technologies, according to Eric Roseman, Lincoln’s head of innovation.
Russell Kutach, a contractor for SiteAware, launches a drone that he uses to survey construction sites in Houston.PHOTO: JEFF LAUTENBERGER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
New technologies being used by Houston-based Hines, one of the biggest global developers, include a drone surveillance service provided by an Israeli startup named SiteAware. Several times a week, a drone flies over Texas Tower, a new office building rising in Houston, taking digital images that Hines compares with job specifications to confirm plans have been accurately followed.
Hines created the position of chief innovation officer in 2016, feeling the industry had changed more in the previous five years than in the preceding quarter-century, according to Charlie Kuntz, who was named to the job. “The volume of technology that was coming into real estate was larger than ever before,” he said.
For more information on Houston office space, Houston retail space or Houston warehouse space and Houston industrial space, please call 713 782-0260 or see my web site at : www.houstonrealtyadvisors.com Thank you for your interest.
When Ryan Hoopes of Cushman & Wakefield helps companies choose new headquarters, he often asks landlords a question that, not too long ago, would have been unheard of: “How do you plan to accommodate flex-space in your building? Because our clients are demanding it.”
Flexible, shared office space — think coworking spaces, incubators, and accelerators — is on the rise in Houston. Over the past 10 years, flex office space has absorbed a greater share of Houston’s office market, growing at a compound annual rate of 17 percent, while the office market only increased at a 1.7 percent clip, according to commercial real estate firm CBRE.
Flexible, shared office space — think coworking spaces, incubators, and accelerators — is on the rise in Houston. Over the past 10 years, flex office space has absorbed a greater share of Houston’s office market, growing at a compound annual rate of 17 percent, while the office market only increased at a 1.7 percent clip, according to commercial real estate firm CBRE.
With flex office space, companies and individuals can rent by the month and by the number of offices and desks needed, which can be scaled as the user shrinks or grows. The arrangement originally solved a problem faced by many startups with too much uncertainty to sign long-term leases. Now the practice has spread to all segments of the office market.
While the model still appeals to startups — The Cannon, which aims to build a tech culture in Houston, converted an entire oil and gas equipment manufacturing warehouse into a home for entrepreneurs — other industries have found a use for it as well. Coworking companies say they’ve seen sign-ups from individuals looking for a place to work on days they don’t commute to an office and from large corporations that want space for a satellite sales office or are staffing up for short-term projects.
“We’ve got realtors, we’ve got oil and gas companies, we’ve got consultants,” said content creator Carrie Colbert, who shares an office with three desks at Life Time Work with her partner, investor Mark Latham.
“I just got a call from a Fortune 1500 company looking for a way to put 2,000 people in a flexible workplace because they did not want to sign a long-term lease,” said Jacob Bates, chief executive of CommonGrounds, which will open a 27,136-square-foot coworking space in Greenway Plaza this September.
The explosion of coworking space has given rise to a variety of product offerings; it seems there’s a coworking company for every niche.
Into fitness? Life Time Work offers health-centric office spaces (lots of water stations for hydration and plantlife for productivity), and a membership comes with access to Life Time’s high-end gyms. James O’Reilly, president of Life Time Work, said the idea to expand into coworking came from seeing people working in the lobbies of its gyms. Life Time Work opened in City center in May and plans a downtown location in GreenStreet and a north suburb location in Shenandoah to open in 2020 and 2021, respectively.
A frequent flier? Several coworking companies are racing to open locations around the world, sometimes by franchising or buying local operations. Mark Patek, the director of sales for Venture X, said the company has sold more than 100 franchises around the world. “So if you travel to Chicago, New York or London, you can check into Venture X,” he said. The company, which has six locations in Dallas, recently announced it is encouraging franchises to open in Houston.
Hoopes, of Cushman & Wakefield, said he’s seen landlords begin to treat coworking spaces as an amenity, a way to offer companies happy hours, lunch-and-learns and the option to expand when necessary.
For more information on Houston office space, Houston retail space or Houston warehouse space and Houston industrial space, please call 713 782-0260 or see my web site at : www.houstonrealtyadvisors.com Thank you for your interest.
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A medical office building changed hands in Sugar Land. An undisclosed buyer acquired Town Center Medical, a 30K SF medical office building at 16545 Southwest Freeway. The Class-A property is adjacent to Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital, a 319-bed general acute care hospital specializing in cardiology, oncology, sports medicine, and women’s care. Built-in 2008, Town Center Medical is fully leased. ENT and Allergy, an ear, nose and throat group, serves as the anchor tenant. “The Town Center Medical disposition highlights the robust demand for stabilized, on-campus medical office buildings in the Houston Metro area,” Transwestern Commercial Services’ Robby Winston said. “Sophisticated healthcare real estate investors continue to be optimistic about long-term yields from core medical office assets.” Houston Specialists Alliance Ltd. purchased the land in 2006 from Town Center Lakeside Ltd. for $750K, according to Reonomy. The assessed land value now is $1.3M while the total assessed value of the property is $5.3M, according to Reonomy. Winston, along with Eric Johnson, Lisa Bovermann and Brooks Creech, represented the seller. TCS Houston has executed 522 healthcare transactions during the last 24 months and manages a healthcare portfolio of 69 properties totaling more than 5M SF.
