With the deal done, National City Mortgage is making plans to roll two, possibly three, offices in Dallas into the block of office space. The lender, a subsidiary of Cleveland-based National City Corp., has had a presence in the building for about six years, but under the banner of Accubanc until 1999.
National City signed a six-year lease and grabbed lead tenant status after quietly surveying the market and then initiating talks about three months ago with Lakeside's owner, Equity Office Properties, Susan Arledge of Dallas-based Arledge/Power Real Estate Group tells GlobeSt.com. At the end of the day, National City was on board with an extra 20,000 sf or practically a full floor in the 397,328-sf, 18-story building at 12337 Merit Dr.
The early renewal and expansion put the mortgage operation into 7,000-sf first-floor space, which will be retooled for a data center, plus offices on levels five, six and seven. Bids are being taken now for the finish-out work.
The newly crafted deal comes about six months early. It carries first rights of refusal on several offices for a combined 20,000 sf, Arledge says.
The National City search included reviewing several sublease options in garden-style buildings. But when Equity Office stepped up to talk serious business, the market scouts stopped looking around. "Equity was great to work with," Arledge emphasizes. "They just realized they had to meet market rate." The difficulty of the times, she stresses, is that "class A office buildings have to compete with buildings that aren't always comparable."
Arledge and partner Van Power plus the firm's Susie Webb were the tenant's representatives. The Chicago-based Equity Office Properties' managing director Andy Smith did its bargaining.
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