Renewed Amenities Influence Lease Renewal
The continued flight-to-quality combined with strong leasing activity resulted in the Houston class-A market netting positive absorption for last year.
HOUSTON—UniversalPegasus International, part of Huntington Ingalls Industries, has renewed its lease for 113,114 square feet for its corporate headquarters at 4848 Loop Central Dr. The landlord is a joint venture of Griffin Partners and Wheelock Street Capital.
“Loop Central has proven to be a convenient central location and cost-effective office solution for our people over the years and we are pleased that it will continue to be the home of our headquarters in Houston,” says Kevin Kelly, UPI’s chief financial officer. “We are looking forward to the new amenities that Griffin Partners will be implementing and believe they will enhance the productivity of our workforce.”
CBRE’s Lucian Bukowski represented the tenant, UniversalPegasus International. Transwestern executive vice president David Baker, senior managing director Doug Little and vice president Kelli Gault are providing leasing services on behalf of the landlord.
“UPI has been a tenant at Loop Central for 15 years. Griffin Partners has an aggressive plan in place to enhance the tenant experience at the campus with a host of new amenities including a state-of-the-art tenant lounge, fitness center, world-class conference center and improved food service offerings,” Gault tells GlobeSt.com. “Additionally, ownership has extensive plans to upgrade the park-like exterior spaces by adding outdoor seating and walking trails.”
Gault says this will further differentiate and position Loop Central as a value office option for other respected tenants in the market to consider.
The Loop Central project is a three-building office campus strategically located in proximity to the Uptown/Galleria and Greenway Plaza submarkets, and in proximity to some of Houston’s most affluent residential neighborhoods, including River Oaks, West University, Bellaire, Tanglewood and The Villages. The campus has frontage along the Westpark Tollway, providing both visibility and express vehicular access to Houston’s western suburbs.
Despite energy prices slumping through the fourth quarter, elevated leasing activity fueled by energy companies led the Houston office market to its highest quarterly absorption totals in approximately three years, according to a fourth quarter report by Transwestern. The continued flight-to-quality combined with strong leasing activity resulted in the class-A market netting positive absorption for the year.
In addition to the energy sector, co-working also proved to be a strong driver as the second wave of expansion for the trending space type occurred throughout the market. During the fourth quarter, providers such as Bond Collective, CommonGrounds, Life Time Work, Spaces and WeWork all secured new locations.
This wave of expansion is expected to continue well into the New Year as large providers look to secure multiple locations covering the broad market. Of note, some of the positive absorption created last quarter will have corresponding negative events as the tenants will be vacating space and moving into new facilities, says the Transwestern report.