CityWestPlace Leases Take Occupancy Up a Notch
Two long-term leases have been inked recently by Honeywell and Bill.com at CityWestPlace, which has also been re-designated by BOMA as a top performer in national operations and management.
HOUSTON—Encompassing 1,473,177 rentable square feet across four campus buildings in the Westchase District, CityWestPlace is operated by Parkway Property Investments LLC. Set on 35 acres, CityWestPlace has three dining options and two fitness centers, as well as recreational offerings that include a soccer field, outdoor track, sand volleyball court, indoor basketball court, horseshoe pit and bocce ball court.
Two long-term leases have been inked recently on the CityWestPlace campus. Honeywell has executed a lease for 114,068 square feet with a late 2019 commencement date. And, Bill.com executed a 25,000- square-foot lease commencing on July 1, 2019. This brings the leased percentage of CityWestPlace building 4 up to 92.8% from its previous 87.9%.
Honeywell was represented by Rich Pancioli and John Morris with CBRE. JP Hutcheson led efforts on behalf of Parkway in the transaction.
Honeywell will move to CityWestPlace building 1 for its primary Houston base of operations of its Honeywell Process Solutions business. Having outgrown its current Houston headquarters, CityWestPlace afforded Honeywell the workspace and access to amenities it was seeking to accommodate the approximately 750 team members who will be located there.
“Honeywell is a company with an extensive history and acclaimed reputation for creating exceptional products, solving complex problems through software solutions, and implementing cutting-edge technologies in a variety of industries including oil and gas,” according to Parkway’s senior leasing manager JP Hutcheson.
Honeywell is a technology company that delivers aerospace products and services, and control technologies for buildings and industry.
Bill.com was represented in the transaction by Bo McNally of T3 Advisors and Drew Morris of Savills. Rima Soroka, leasing manager at CityWestPlace, led efforts on behalf of Parkway.
“The execution of the Bill.com lease reinforces the attraction of technology and innovation-focused companies to the CityPlaceWest campus,” according to Eric Siegrist, Parkway’s director of leasing for Texas. “After being originally designed and constructed by a major software company, the campus has become a hub for like-minded businesses who value a collaborative and inspiring ecosystem.”
Palo Alto, CA-headquartered technology company Bill.com helps more than 3 million members manage more than $60 billion in transactions on an annual basis.
“The marketplace consistently tells us the 35-acre CityWestPlace campus is a most unique, multi-tenanted piece of commercial real estate–and that it can be a major factor in a company’s quest to recruit and retain top talent,” Siegrist tells GlobeSt.com. “We are grateful for the companies who are choosing to combine this class-AA highly-amenitized environment with their company culture as a point of differentiation among prospective employees.”
Beyond the leasing realm, CityWestPlace has been re-designated as a top performer in the areas of operations and management nationwide by BOMA as part of its 360 Performance Program. The designation is valid until March 2022.
The BOMA 360 Performance Program serves as a global industry benchmark for operational best practices in commercial real estate. The BOMA 360 Performance Program list is a veritable “what’s what” of top-performing buildings with top-tier operational oversight and facility management.
“The BOMA 360 Performance Program distinction is a significant honor for CityWestPlace, and Parkway is thrilled that one of its properties has been placed back on this prestigious list,” says Matt Kent, Parkway’s managing director. “We look forward to having each of our properties re-designated for this list in the near future as Parkway continues to provide premier building operations across its Houston portfolio and at its additional properties around the country.”
Parkway is a privately owned real estate investment firm led by a team with a track record of investing in high-growth US markets and across economic cycles. Parkway owns, operates and manages institutional-quality commercial office assets throughout the Sunbelt region. In addition, Parkway identifies and structures acquisitions, and provides property and asset management, leasing, accounting and construction management services. Parkway currently operates approximately 12.4 million square feet of office properties located in Sacramento, Houston, Miami, Orlando and Jacksonville, FL and Raleigh, NC.
Positive absorption and lower vacancy rates recorded in the first quarter are encouraging signs of progress in Houston’s office market, according to a first quarter report by Avison Young. Direct net absorption remained positive for the third consecutive quarter, with the most recent 12-month total a positive 790,000 square feet.
This positive momentum builds confidence for Houston’s office market recovery. Vacancy rates have shown consistent improvement during the last two years. The first-quarter direct vacancy rate of 15.9% represents the lowest recorded since first quarter 2017’s 15.6% rate.